How long does it take to change a light bulb?

A long time ago I realized that on occasions, I can take a somewhat mundane task and turn it into the chore from hell! This is just one of those occasions…

The front door of my house is flanked by a light on each side for those times when I stay out past my bedtime. One of those lights recently burned out, so I decided to change it. There was no reason to think that this shouldn’t take but a couple of minutes, so I grabbed the new bulb and went to work. Looking at the housing, it’s similar to the one pictured above with a four sided glass and brass enclosure and four small hand screws holding the top on, one on each corner. The bulb of course is changed through the top, so I proceeded to unscrew the four screws. Once I had this done, the entire housing started to fall apart on me, and I was left standing there with screws in one hand, and everything else barely being held together in the other hand.

“Oh this sucks!” I said to myself.

Realizing that something just wasn’t right, I tried to piece it all back together so that I can start over again. But the catch was that the housing now didn’t want to go back into place. I pushed up here, moved the glass over there, dropped a screw, found it under some plants, placed the top back on, but nothing worked. After about 15 minutes of moving pieces around and some colorful language, I managed to get it back together just so that I can start over once more. Taking a closer look now, I see that there’s a smaller portion of the top that comes off to make it easy to change bulbs without taking apart the entire housing.

“Well duh, dumb ass!” I thought to myself.

So now I take the smaller cap piece off and easily remove the old light bulb. After putting the new one in, I grabbed the cap to place back on, but it wouldn’t fit. I look at the cap to make sure I had it in the correct place, but it still wouldn’t fit. I then grabbed the old bulb and held it up so that I can compare it to the new one, and it’s the exact same bulb, size and all. I then realized that there was a bolt from the cap portion that was too long and kept hitting the bulb.

“This is the same damn bulb as before! How the hell did it work before and not now?!?” I said as I grew more frustrated.

Finally I decided that the only way this was going to work, was if I cut the bolt down so that it will fit right. All I needed was a hack saw and I’d be good to go. But where the hell is my hack saw? I searched my toolbox; I searched the garage, but nothing!

“Give me a fucking break!” I grumbled.

What I did find was some tin snips and a metal file. So first I tried snipping the bolt off, but it was too thick. So then I tried to file it off, but of course that was slow going. So after I filed some more, I went back to the tin snips and finally was able to shorten the bolt. Then, and only then did the top cap finally go into place and I was able to fasten it back down. What a mess!

I think it took me a total of between 30-40 minutes to change this one bulb. Thank God I bought the extended life bulbs, so these should last a few years before they need to be changed again.