Okay guys, it’s that time of the year. Time when your wife says, let’s get our Christmas lights out, and put ‘em up. Yes, somehow, somewhere in the guy code it is written that the man’s job is to put up the Christmas lights. No matter what the women want, no matter how fancy they will decorate for the holidays it’s our job to do the dirty work of climbing the ladders, scaling the trees and braving the elements to hang the lights. Of course, there are many of us who enjoy this in a Clark W. Grizwald sort of way as well. There’s just one important thing to remember when doing this: Plan ahead and don’t end up with two female plugs that need to be connected!

    Every year when I’m putting up our lights I check this about a dozen times. You don’t want to end up with a female cord end at your outlet. If you do so, you may think you can go to the hardware store and get a male-male plug. Well, you can’t get such a thing. They’re nick-named suicide cords for a good reason. They’re extremely dangerous! Think about it. It’s the same as having two live wires carrying enough electricity to fry you just dangling out there in the open.

   Every year we get dozens of requests for such and adapter. They’re not available. Never have been, so don’t say, “Gee, I got one here last year.” They never will be available. The liability for making such a thing is huge. We do not recommend you make your own, nor will we help you do so.

   Do the right thing, plan ahead. If you don’t do that, do the next best thing; take your lights down and start all over again. It’s the old ounce of prevention thing, and it really works here!

Clark (not Grizwald)