Electricity had always tormented me. I didn’t understand it. And all my instincts had told me to steer clear of it, like a mean, heavy-drinking uncle.

Three quick anecdotes.

At 10 years old, I tried using a thin, white extension cord as a chain for a swing. My friend and I lashed the cord to a battered motorcycle seat and looped the cord around a beam above the garage. We swung tandemly until the cord snapped. Not wanting to hear the wrath of my parents, I took the two pieces of cord home and secretly knifed away the rubber ends of each broken end to expose the copper wires. Then I took a pair of pliers and twisted the wires together. I plugged one end into an outlet and the other into the living room lamp where, until the swing incident, it had been used for years. The lamp had a roller on/off switch. I rolled it with my thumb again and again, “click, click.” No light. I figured the wires weren’t mashed together enough. So I reached down and grabbed the bare copper and mashed them more. Instantly, the lamp was gone. My frustration vaporized. In its place was a deep, sustained hum, a speckled light behind my eyelids, the feel of the pointed wires on my fingertips and hot sting that raged up through my left arm. Then just as suddenly, it was gone and I was on my end a few feet away from the cord. That was my introduction to electricity.

Seven years later I was trying to change the starter in my 1968 Toyota Corona. I wasn’t sure about some of the connection points so I called my neighbor over. He was a grown man and an experienced mechanic. Reaching my hand down into the bowels of the engine, I said, “you see down there where that wire should connect? That’s my prob-” At that very moment I discovered my mechanic neighbor was also a comedian. With my arm in the mouth of the engine, he yelled out, “Bzzzzt!” Instinctively, thanks to my existing anxiety about all things charged, I yanked my arm out of the engine and ripped my skin at the elbow. The mechanic laughed and he laughed, delighted with himself.

Then, years before any of this happened, and likely the source of my inborn fear of electricity, my grandfather, an electrician, had knelt down behind a church organ beside the altar, to fix its electrical connection. Someone, noticing the lights weren’t working, pushed home the breaker, and in doing so, instantly killed my dad’s dad.

I bring all that with me when I approach electricity. But I no longer approach it with blind fear, just a deep respect. And now, I can do plenty of light electric work from replacing doorbells, outlets, switches and some heavier stuff like cutting new outlets, installing ventilation fans for a bathroom and channel power to new locations throughout a home. Most of the little projects around the house anyone can do. However, if you need to rewire the entire house, say from knob and tube set up to a more contemporary grid system, then don’t even think about attempting it yourself. Get an electrician.

Here is a simple electrical fix you can do. It’s easy and gives you a basic idea of how electricity works in house. The cool thing is that tackling this basic task, just like completing any project, makes you feel great.

Replacing a light switch.

Go to hardware store, buy voltage testing pen.

Come back home, turn off power to entire house

Unscrew cover plate to switch, unscrew mounting screws (see picture A). Put testing pen to both wires. If pen blinks or beeps, the power is still on and you must stop immediately and make sure power at circuit breaker box is off.

Unscrew the wires (one black one white) from the old switch.

Screw the wires onto the new switch, the black wire goes with the brass screw on top (See picture B). The green wire is your ground and should be screwed down to the back of the connection box with a same-colored screw provided. Curl each wire clockwise around its corresponding screw and tighten firmly. But don’t over tighten.

Remount the switch tucking wires into connection box. Put cover plate back on.

Turn power on.

The next time you replace a switch, bring the old one with you to the hardware store so you can match it to the new one you want. It’ll save you a lot of guess work.