Most of you who know me online undoubtedly think I am kidding or exaggerating when I talk about how totally clueless I am when it comes to anything mechanical or involving taking tool in hand. Those who know me in person, KNOW how true that is.

Well, I am here today to tell you those days are now behind me. I made a discovery this morning that has changed my life. One that I can't wait to share with the whole world. I changed a light bulb.

Oh, I've changed light bulbs before. I musta changed a zillion of them over the years. It's HOW I changed it that's so mind boggling. Over my dining room table is a fan and a buncha little lights with one big light in the middle. The one in the middle has a globe over it. The big light and three of the little ones had burned out. I had finally gotten tired of trying to read with only one fifteen watt bulb still burning and had decided to change them all.

I started with the globe. I turned the first screw to the right and it didn't move. I tried turning it to the left and it moved. I took out the screw and tried the second screw. Twisting it to the right didn't work, so I twisted it to the left and it unscrewed. One screw left. I tried twisting it to the right and nuthin' happened. I turned it to the left and it unscrewed. The glimmer of an idea began to take shape in my mind as I put the globe down on the dining room table and stood back up. I turned the bulb to the left..........and IT CAME RIGHT OF THE SOCKET!

My heart was now beating a hundred miles an hour. With trembling fingers, I tried the first of the smaller bulbs. I turned it to the left.......and IT CAME OUT THAT WAY TOO! ALL the bulbs came out by turning them to the left. I remember looking wildly about my kitchen and dining room as I put the little bulbs alongside the big one. I ran to the garage and opened my tool chest. I took out one of the screwdrivers with a flat end and one with those squiggly ends and ran back into the house.

I went straight to a wall switch cover thingie and managed to get the squiggly ended screwdriver into a screw. I turned it to the left. The screw CAME RIGHT OUT.....as easy as one, two, three. I stood there looking at the screw. For fifty years, I'd been trying to guess which way I should turn screws to get them out of whatever they were in.........not to mention all the lightbulbs that had shattered when I turned them the wrong way. Why had no one ever told me about this?

I sat down and forced myself to think calmly. Maybe this was just a fluke. Maybe whoever built my house had a thing about everything going in and coming out the same way. I tried to remember the last time I had changed a tire. I had done what I usually do. I had fit the tire changer thingie over each nut and yanked back and forth till they started to loosen, then turned which ever way made them get looser till they came off. I coundn't remember which way that was, but I DID remember putting them back on and I had turned each one to the RIGHT! I was starting to hyperventilate now. Had I stumbled onto some sort of universal truth?

I jumped up, ran into the living room and did something I hadn't done in years. I turned off the TV set. I actually turned the little knob right there on the set itself. No remote or anything......just a twist of the knob TO THE LEFT. I turned it TO THE RIGHT and it came back on. I tried the radio and the same thing happened. I stood there stunned. Turn the light bulb to the right and a connection is made and it comes on. Turn radio or TV knob to the right and the same thing happens.........I felt like crying for joy. I had discovered clock and counter clock.

As I write this, it is already starting to get dark. I am totally exhausted. Every appliance and fixture in my house has been taken apart and put back together. There's no longer any doubt in my mind. Everything goes IN clockwise and comes OUT counter clockwise. I mean EVERYTHING! Am I the only person in the world that didn't know this?

PLEASE, people.........if there are other truths like this one that no one ever bothered to tell me......let me in on the secret. How about wires? Is there some secret way to know whether red ones and black ones attach to yellow ones and what about the green ones? Where do they go? Does anyone know about watts, ohlms, ergs and stuff like that? How about venetian blinds? Is there some way to know which way to turn the glass thingie that hangs there to make the little slats turn up or down the same way all the time?

How about the knobs on gas stoves? Mine make the gas go on when I turn them to the right. I found this out today. Is that a universal truth too? Now that I think of it, I usta put my finger in the holes and turn my dial phone thingie to the right too. Was that another coincidence? Caps on bottles.........THEY screw off counter clockwise too.

Good Lord............does this mean.................?