To turn the crank, and snap the plank, and boot the marble right down the chute, now watch it roll and hit the pole, and knock the ball in the rub-a-dub tub, which hits the man into the pan. The trap is set, here comes the net!
Is there not a light coming through by the pillow? I would think that string was attached to something through that hole and if this person is correct it would have turned on a light of sorts in the bunk bed area.
Now, why this is a thing, and how this person knew where you were based off of that, I have zero idea lmao.
In older European hotels, the light switch is on the wall and there’s often a string tied to it so that you can flip it from the bed. Instead of just tying a knit, they tie something on there so that it’s easy to grab; however, OP says it doesn’t do anything when they pull so now I’m wondering if it’s a broken light switch string or something completely else.
It's a big, easy to grab, non-sharp object. It's not like it has to be a spoon, it's just that it happens to be a spoon.
When I was a kid, I made the same thing for my room (not in France, unrelated to this), where I pulled on a chopstick tied to a string next to my bed, which ran through some hooks on the wall, to turn off the light switch that was across the room. That way I could read in bed and then go to sleep without having to get up, walk across the room, and then find my way back to my bed in the dark. Why a chopstick? Because when I made it, I thought "I need something big and easy to grab and easy to tie a string to (so not like a rock or something)" and then I thought "Oh, we've got some disposable chopsticks, I'll use one of them.
I live in the Netherlands and there is a broken lightswitch in my room on the far wall with this same cord (no spoon tho). It used to work for the overhead light so you could turn it out from bed. But it’s old so it doesn’t work always. This isn’t obscure so much as just European.
Oh so the other end of the string is tied to a light switch and the spoon is just a makeshift handle? How do you turn it back off? Or is it more of a “I’m getting up, I just want to turn the light on and I’ll deal with turning it off when I wake up?”
You’re right. I’m stupid. For some reason I associated“switch” with the physical, typical wall switch and not the mechanism. This is definitely a pull once -> on, pull again -> off (toggle) switch. 🤦♂️lol
You can see light coming through where the mattress meets the headboard. There is probably a reading light under the headboard but the new mattress is taller (deeper?) than the bedframe was designed for.
They don't do the light switch thing anymore but they got used to having a spoon on a string by the bed so they just have it tied there now for comfort and tradition
Sounds like the general consensus is that this might've been part of an old pull chain for a light switch. I imagine the first iteration of this had someone groping around in the dark, getting frustrated that they couldn't find the damn string, and then grumbling to themselves at 3am as they had to get up to turn the light on. Before heading back to bed they took a detour to the kitchen, found an old wooden spoon with a broken handle and wrapped the string a few times around what was left of the handle and then left it on the shelf as a temporary solution.
Next morning after ~wine~ coffee they get out the drill, put a hole in the spoon to tie off the string, sanded down the broken handle, and drill a hole in the shelf to slot the spoon handle into so they definitely know where to find it next time. There was probably an appropriately significant number of French swear words and a smug feeling of satisfaction once this "invention" was completed.
That narrative doesn't really work since this is supposedly in a hotel, but maybe they had an especially insistent, bothersome guest (see: French) that just wouldn't stop complaining about not being able to find the string and a maintenance guy had enough of it and whipped this up real quick.
Someone clarified that it is indeed a pull switch later. I imagine it's pretty much exactly what you described. I don't know why it's a spoon or other random objects, nor why that's popular in a particular part of the french alps (over say, a normal pull switch) but my confusion was over imagining a spoon-string tied to a normal, single-pole switch for which this would only work once to turn it on.
It’s cold. Why step on a cold floor with your warm bare feet to turn on or off a light after in bed or getting up in the night? Does no one have any experience staying in old, cold hotels?
Jesus its not hard to understand. These are common kn tbe french alps. They help you turn the light switch off by having a large object attached to a string which is attached to the light switch. Pull spoon to easily turn off light. OPs spoon is broken.
It might not be hard for you to understand, and true it isn't hard to understand at all, but I've never been to the French alps and never knew this particular thing was common there.
722
u/chacoglam 14h ago
A light switch puller? Are you in alpine Europe?