Few things are more humbling than performing some household task that should be easy but somehow isn't. I learned this for the umpteenth time in my life when tinkering with my Aladdin oil lamp tonight.
I've had this lamp from, I believe, the very first winter I lived in West Marlborough. It produces not only a nice light but also a great deal of warmth, so it's very useful in case of power outages.
Aladdins are pretty sturdy (except for the extremely delicate mantle, the part that glows), and for the first time ever I needed to replace the wick. I ordered it from Lehman's, an old-fashioned hardware store in Kidron, Ohio, which stocks all things Aladdin (and off-the-grid).
When it arrived, I cleared off the table top, took the new wick out of the box, propped up the box so I could read the instructions, and started dismantling the lamp, trying to fix in my mind what piece belonged where.
One of the first steps was to remove the old wick, naturally. Easier said than done: It had been there for 20 years, and it was perfectly happy. But I managed to dislodge it, millimeter by millimeter. Then came the challenge of installing the new one. The instructions referred to lamp parts by name, but there were no illustrations. This was a problem.
"Pull tabs until bottom of tape INSIDE wick is just below top edge of center tube."
"Turn winder anti-clockwise slowly until raiser arms engage with wick clips."
(Yes, "anti-clockwise.")
Guess what? There's not a YouTube video showing how to install a new wick, and the only online instructions simply repeat the ones on the box. But somehow the raiser arms DID end up engaging with the wick clips, with a very satisfying "click," and everything went right back into place.
Fortunately I remembered how to reassemble the whole thing, and now the new wick is soaking in the oil, ready for tomorrow evening.
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