Ceiling Fan
One of the first things that I noticed about the United States of America was that there were no ceiling fans there. And quite frankly, it felt pretty weird. I mean to a person who has grown up with ceiling fans all his life, the lack of them was a sore point. I still remember the first time I saw a ceiling fan. I mean, I had always had a ceiling fan in every room of the house, but the first time I got up, close and personal was when I was probably twelve years old.
 We had a servant maid who used to take care of the cleaning around the house. Well, it so happened that one day, she didn’t show up as usual. And mom had planned a huge spring cleaning effort. So, wasting no time in proceeding with her plan, she roped me in to help out with the cleaning. And being small and nimble (in her opinion, needlessly so) I was tasked with cleaning the ceiling fans. I placed two chairs atop one another in order to reach the ceiling fan in the first place. And then went up to see the ceiling fan for the first time in my life.
Something that looked so clean from below and provided so much air was a filthy piece of metal suspended from the roof. A big ugly hook answered my questions as to how the ceiling fan managed to stay on the ceiling. And below that hook, or rather, covering it was a plastic upturned bowl that seemed to do nothing more than collect dirt. And below this was the main part of the ceiling fan that included a big, round base from which three fin like objects protruded at obtuse angles. All of them had a fine layer of dust on top and solid grime attached to the edges. I held my nose, prayed that the chairs would stay upright and began the job of cleaning our ceiling fan.
This routine was repeated at least seven times. Yes! Like I mentioned earlier, nearly every room had a ceiling fan and the living room had two to cover the entire area. At the end of the day, I was pooped and exhausted. But the exhaustion seemed to be worth it when mom made me a glass of cool lemonade and I sank into a chair as the ceiling fans I had cleaned steadily and continuously whirred round and round providing me with cool breeze. |
