Mystery Solved

So we've been in this house 4 1/2 years - and I'd like to think we've got everything figured out at this point. We've had a few problems here and there, and it never fails that some sort of half-arsed attempt at repair had been made before we moved in. Needless to say, when something goes wrong, we're never surprised at the reason.

We have a ceiling fan in our bedroom - which has come in handy in the warmer months. It's got this neat handy dandy remote - for those moments of laziness when you can't be bothered to get out of bed to turn off the light or adjust the fan. Unfortunately, the remote has often been a fun toy for the boys when they've been fast enough to beat me to the switch.

Which leads to the mystery being solved. The mystery is this - over the past 4 years, we've had 2 incidents where the light in the room was so incredibly dim. Like night-light dim. And we couldn't figure out why. We replaced the bulbs. Steve checked the wiring. Nada. We just chalked it up to another one of those half-arsed things in the house, and planned on getting a new one in the future.

Last night, they boys and I were hanging out, watching TV and snuggling before bed. Justin had grabbed the remote, and I thought nothing of it. All of a sudden, the light got really dim - I noticed his little meaty hand just clutching the remote where the light switch is. Then my own personal light got brighter - It has a dimmer switch! So lo and behold - there was nothing wrong with the light in the first place. The problem was us not being able to figure out how to operate a simple light switch remote!

If we can't figure this out, our VCR and DVD player are totally out of the question...