Nishka Dasgupta

When you move into a new apartment, one of the most important considerations is lighting. This is a guide on how to set that up.

1. Move into your house and discover there are no lights pre-installed.
2. Go to the nearest hardware store.
3. Ask them for a light that takes 0 effort to set up, because you are tired from moving. Emphasise that you most certainly do not want to drill, or fiddle around with wires: you want to buy something, take it home, and flip a switch.
4. Repeat the previous step until you are quite certain the message has been received.
5. Buy a lamp. (Let’s call this Lamp #1.)
6. Go home, take it out of the box, and discover it does not have a plug, but loose wires, and you do, after all, have to go to some trouble to set it up.
7. Try to shove the wires into the socket because it is late and the apartment is dark and you are a little desperate.
8. Fail.
9. Go online and order a lamp (Lamp #2) from somewhere else.
10. Borrow a lamp (Lamp #3) from a friend in the meantime.
11. Wait until the delivery date of Lamp #2.
12. Get a notification from the courier that the delivery failed and they will try again on X date.
13. Repeat step 12 5 times.
14. Call customer service and ask them, politely, what is going on and what black hole your lamp has disappeared into.
15. Accept when customer service sends you a repeat order (Lamp #4) for free as apology (they also do not know what black hole Lamp #2 has disappeared into).
16. Repeat step 13 for the new lamp, Lamp #4.
17. Go to a different shop and buy a lamp (Lamp #5), verify from display models that it is “plug and play”, and ask the shop assistant for a matching lightbulb.
18. Go home and build the lamp.
19. Discover that the lightbulb is the wrong wattage for the lamp.
20. Sit on the floor in your dark apartment.
21. Cry.
22. Go out in a fit of spite and visit every store within walking distance, where “walking distance” means “until your legs are ready to give up”.
23. Buy lightbulbs at every single one in the hope that one of them will be The One.
24. Fit one of the bulbs in.
25. It works!

Epilogue:

1. You get a message from the courier: your lamp (Lamp #4) will be delivered soon.
2. Repeat step 12.