The ktenologist is driving down the highway with his daughter. They are driving instead of taking the train because the ktenologist is going to a  play with his wife after work and would probably miss the last train.

The ktenologist’s soul is heavy because he did something wrong the day before while trying to install an Ikea lamp in his other daughter’s apartment and now only her refrigerator and one electrical outlet work.

He had resisted installing the lamp for a long time, until his wife threatened to get an electrician to do it. Then he had driven over with his father-in-law, who has a better understanding of wiring and they had tried to install the lamp. His father-in-law is a wonderful man, but he has Alzheimer’s and was unable to find his glasses at the apartment, so the ktenologist had tried to do the wiring with the abovementioned results.

A day wasted, and now an electrician has to come anyway, and who knows what he’ll have to fix.

“You take what you get in this life,” says the ktenologist to his teenaged daughter.

“You get what you take in this life,” says his daughter.

The ktenologist pats her on the leg and just drives for a while, thinking, this kid is going to be okay.