By Sue Murphy
My kitchen has been reassembled! (The peasants rejoice.) I can now whip up dinner and put the dishes in the dish- washer, if I so choose. So far I haven’t. My refrigerator is on probation with a new and improved water line, but I will shut the water off to the entire house when I leave town. Trust, but verify. You know how it goes.
Now that I have weathered the great flood, other household glitches seem minor. A sprinkler head went rogue, my outdoor lighting refused to light, the dehumidifier was de-ing so much that it humidified an adjacent wall. In each case, I simply went to my Big Book of Fix-It and called
the appropriate repairperson. Problem solved.
Of course, when you call in a repairperson, they start asking questions: How old is the unit? Is it a Friendalator or a Foedalater? How many zippity zips does this unit have? I try desperately to look intelligent, but the answer is always the same: I don’t know.
Turns out, I don’t know a lot, and being as I am now in the homestead front lines, it would be really handy if I learned. It would be even handier if I figured out how to do a few household fixes myself. I’m not talking about putting up drywall (see, I’m learning already). I’m talking about things that require a non-electrical tool and a few righty-tighty moves. I consider myself teachable and I have the proper motivation. What I need are clear-cut instructions and some practice.
I’m good with instructions. For some self-prescribed therapy, I’ve been assembling a giant Lego castle, 4,000-plus pieces. There are step-by-step pictorial directions to follow, and I know Mickey and Minnie are going to love it, but the process is strictly hands-on and hasn’t added a thing to my tool expertise.
When the garage door started bouncing back, I remembered that it was probably because I had jarred the sensors near the floor. One small kick, and everything was working again, but fixing things with your shoe is one thing. Using tools from the workbench is another.
The workbench. All those years, it was exclusively Harold’s turf. When a problem arose, I immediately turned it over to Harold, who retreated to the garage, emerged with the proper widget and tool to affix said widget, and within minutes everything was hunky-dory again. The workbench was never part of my territory, and I was not privy to Harold’s intricate widget filing system. At least I think there was a system, although now, as I stand gazing up at the pegboard full of bins and boxes, I feel completely overwhelmed.
A wise person once said, “Do something every day that scares you,” so before I take on the zombie apocalypse, I’ll do a few rounds with Harold’s workbench. Step one: After the workers put in my new floor, one of the air conditioner grates wouldn’t go back in. A piece of metal was jutting out into the ductwork opening, so I walked right up to the workbench, pulled a hammer off the pegboard, and hammered it back into place. Problem solved. I celebrated with a bag of M&M’s.
Of course, that was only a hammer. I have wrenches in metrics and inches, vises and screwdrivers (Philips head and otherwise) ahead of me, but I’ll figure them out one by one. You’ll be so proud of me; this morning I even changed out the air conditioning filters.
It’s a process, a journey, but I’ll get there. All it takes is perseverance … and a lot of M&M’s. ❖