Warning: Falling Lighting

This is the sign that flashed before my mind's eye today:

We had just returned from our last swimming lesson of the summer (sigh of relief). Malena walked through the kitchen door to see one of the blades fall off our moving fan.

This is the fan running, before it fell apart.

She was the only witness, and thankfully, was not hurt. Then the other kids started running in. Collin ran underneath it, it sparked, and the entire lighting fixture fell, hanging only by its wires. Malena and Collin were quite excited by the whole sequence of events.

I should have gotten a picture of that. It was quite a sight to see. My mind was more taken by safety with all the little ones running around, though, so it was taken down quickly.

So what happened? Here's my theory: at one point or another during the course of the last year, Collin has thrown many things at that fan. He keeps hoping the fan will spin it into orbit, I think. One of those things probably cracked the blade. Not knowing about the new defect, we continued using the fan, which made the defect worse each time. Today was the last straw. After the blade gave way, the entire assembly was unstable. Leading to...an entire fan hanging by its wires. And now we have this:

Maybe I can get Doug to implement my new lighting strategy, since the fan has given us a start in taking the current lights down. What do you think? Huh?

Yah, I doubt it, too.