Progress Report on Diwali Light Testing
The lights were packed away working. They are now tangled and half of them are not working.
Progress Report on Diwali Light Testing
Reporting Date: October 24 Diwali: Approaching Light Status: Under Investigation
Phase One: Retrieval
The lights were retrieved from the storage cabinet where they were placed after last year's festival. At the time of storage, they were described as "neatly wrapped."
Upon retrieval: the description was optimistic. The lights have achieved a state of entanglement that suggests eleven months of movement has occurred in the cabinet, possibly due to other items being placed on top of them, possibly due to physics, possibly due to the way lights behave when unsupervised.
The untangling took thirty-five minutes.
Phase Two: Initial Testing
The lights were plugged in. The first strand lit. The second strand had three dark patches. The third strand did not respond at all.
The total light situation: one functional, one partial, one absent.
Phase Three: Diagnosis
Investigation of the third strand revealed a single faulty bulb in the fourth socket. Replacing this bulb would require either a replacement bulb of the correct type or the specific strand-repair knowledge that lives in the memory of someone not present.
The faulty bulb was replaced with a bulb removed from a different strand of the same type, which now has one missing bulb but otherwise works.
The third strand now works. The second replacement strand has a gap.
Phase Four: Confirmation
Each strand was tested again after repair. One extra confirmation per strand. The confirmation was expected before anyone asked. Not confirming would have felt like an incomplete task.
Total light-testing time: ninety-four minutes.
Time spent hanging the lights: twenty minutes.
Outcome
The lights are up. The lights are working. The ninety-four minutes of preparation preceded twenty minutes of use. This ratio is consistent with prior years.
The lights will be taken down after Diwali and packed away. They will be described, at the time of packing, as neatly wrapped.
Next October the process begins again. The confirmation will be expected. The entanglement will also be present.