Half empty or half full?

The old adage about seeing the same world from different points of view proved only too true this past week at our house.

One of the biggest challenges about living in a condo has been the absence of a dedicated laundry room. Instead, we have a multi-purpose room that we’ve dubbed “the washroom” in a playful take on its dual purpose. Toilet & basin (to the right of the door) serving as a downstairs lavatory. Washer & dryer (to the left of the door), serving as the Laundromat.

The washroom has two wall switches just inside the door. The switch closer to the door turns on incandescent lights illuminating the toilet and basin side of the room (and rather invitingly, at that), and the switch farther away turns on an overhead fixture in the ceiling that floods the entire room with fluorescent light (handy for doing laundry).

From the first day we moved in, I occasionally would find myself thinking about how glad I was that the first switch I'd reach for controlled the "pretty light," because the lavatory function of the room is used more frequently than the laundry function, and . . . this was important. . . the room was definitely more attractive when lit just by incandescent light.

What I didn’t know was that Hubby was also thinking about those light switches. However, he was having an opposite reaction, burning with annoyance about what felt to him like a sloppy builder’s error. He objected to the illogical placement of the switches in which the switch closer to the door turned on the light farther away, and the farther switch turned on the light closer to the door.

Only last week did Hubby and I learn what the other one had been thinking when he surprised me with an “improvement in the washroom.”

Yup—he’d reversed the switches one morning when I was away and was mightily pleased about it by the time I got home. I, on the other hand, reacted by thinking about that catch-all promise we spoke aloud almost forty-nine years ago . . . for better or worse . . . and tried to be nice about it.

Since last week, Hubby has installed a lighted switch and dimmer for the incandescent lights. His reasoning is that a person entering the washroom and needing to turn on the light will be instantly drawn to the lighted switch, thus choosing the switch farther away from the door (the pretty light). He assures me that, if I still don’t like the new placement within a few more weeks, he’ll change it back.

Now we are laughing about it, and—in fact—it was he who suggested I write about it on my blog.