Howdy folks, Glen Blamstead here, reporting in from a Mora shop where the temperature is climbing, the dog is panting, and I recently made a purchase I want to walk you through. I bought a ceiling fan last week. Biggest waste of money. It just stands there cheering.
Now, I understand a ceiling fan is not, technically, standing. It's hanging. And I understand it is not, technically, cheering. It's not doing anything. That's the point of the joke, and I'll walk you through where the joke came from so you can see how a man ends up telling it four times before ten in the morning to anyone who'll listen.
Why I Bought The Fan
It has been hot in Kanabec County this week. Not Kansas hot. Not Texas hot. But the kind of Minnesota hot where the humidity crawls up your neck and the pole barn shop feels like the inside of a bread bag if you leave the doors closed for more than twenty minutes. So I went and got a ceiling fan for the shop. Just a decent one. Nothing fancy. A good sturdy one that would move air across the whole 40x60 without groaning.
I picked it up Saturday. I put it up Sunday. I stood underneath it Sunday afternoon with a soda in one hand and a satisfied look on the other, and I flipped the switch. Nothing. I flipped it again. Nothing. I looked up at it, the way a man looks up at a rain cloud that isn't raining, and I said, out loud, to nobody, "Biggest waste of money. It just stands there cheering."
My dog Charlie was there. He was the only witness. He gave me a look I've decided to interpret as "that was pretty good, Glen," but which was probably just "can I have some of your soda."
The Actual Problem
Turns out the fan was fine. I had wired one of the two switches to a circuit that wasn't hot, because that's the kind of morning I was having on Sunday. Ten minutes with a screwdriver and a mild conversation with myself about paying more attention, and the fan was moving air like it was born to it. Charlie approved. He immediately parked himself directly underneath it and fell asleep. The dog knows a good thing when he lays under it.
But the joke stuck. I told it to the crew Monday morning. Somebody laughed. Somebody groaned. Somebody said, "Glen, is this going to be a whole week?" I said probably. I said maybe more than a week. I said if you don't like it, you can go work at a savings and loan, and see how funny that is.
A Customer Bit
The best part of the ceiling fan joke happened Tuesday. A customer came in to talk about a 30x50 shop with a small living quarter — barndominium territory. Nice guy, drove down from McGregor, wanted the walkthrough. We were sitting in our sample building where, wouldn't you know it, we have a ceiling fan hanging from the wooden trusses overhead.
He looked up at it. He said, "How much do those run me?"
I looked up at it. I said, "That one? Nothing. Biggest waste of money. It just stands there cheering."
He didn't laugh. He didn't groan. He didn't do anything. He just looked at me with the flat, uninterested face of a man calculating whether to end this conversation and try a different builder. So I laughed a little on his behalf and moved on to talking about roof pitches and post spacing. He signed a couple weeks later, so I don't think I lost him. But I did learn something.
What I Learned
Not every joke lands with every audience. The crew will laugh at anything. My wife will not laugh at anything. Charlie will laugh at nothing, but he'll also love you unconditionally, so it evens out. Customers are a mixed bag. Some of them will laugh at a bad joke because they're being polite. Some of them will laugh at a bad joke because they think it's actually funny, which is worse in a way. And some of them will just look at you like you have a bug on your forehead, and you have to keep talking as if you meant to do that.
The joke is still good, though. I'll defend that. If you don't laugh at a ceiling fan joke on a hot afternoon in a shop that finally has air moving through it, I don't know what to tell you. Get out more.
Closing Thoughts On Fans
A word about ceiling fans in a pole barn shop, since we're here: they're a good idea. Put them high up in the ridge if you can. Wire them to a real switch that you're going to leave on all summer. Get one you don't hate the look of, because you're going to be staring up at it a lot. And do not, under any circumstances, mount it to something that isn't rated for the load. Our engineered wooden trusses are built for it. Whatever a stick-frame ceiling boxes into is usually not. That's a call your electrician makes, not me.
If you've got a project in mind — pole barn, shop, barndominium — and you want to talk through smart shop wiring, ceiling fan placements, and how much clearance you need above your tallest RV or lift, stop by Sherman in Mora sometime or holler at us. Bring your list. I will tell you the fan joke. You do not have to laugh.
Glen out.
