A few weeks ago my laundry machine broke down. Maleen quickly sent out a plea for help on the local neighborhood social network. Thanks to all who graciously assisted in our family's effort to keep the laundry beast at bay.
As the man of the house, it was my responsibility to get the thing working again. So I headed out to the garage to grab my tools (and my laundry-machine-mr-fix-it hat), so I could settle into some uncomfortable, cramped position working on some genius contraption someone else invented that I know nothing about. Relatively quickly, I ascertained that the bane was a child's sock which had inexplicably passed through those tiny holes in a laundry machine's tub to become lodged in the drain. I extracted the sock—I'm a hero, right?
Wrong.
Having solved the draining problem, I endeavored to put the machine back in it's place. That's when I discovered that in pulling the machine out to work on it, I had inadvertently tweaked the laundry faucet. It was dripping.
I busted out my plumbing-mr-fix-it hat and went to work on that. I shut off the water, dissembled the laundry faucet to the copper, repaired the seals, taped the threads, and tightened everything up again. Now I'm the hero!
Wrong.
I turned the water back on and learned that I had damaged the seal on the laundry hose connection to the faucet. Now it was dripping a very slow drip. Having exhausted the better half of a day, I decided it would be okay for a week, and I shoved the washer back into place.
This morning, (yes, longer than a week...) I took up the project again. I shut off the water, dissembled the hose, replaced the seals, taped the threads, turned it back on, and Viola! no more leaky.
Hero!
Wrong.
I recently happened to notice my guest bathroom ceiling fan hanging out of the ceiling. I'm no pro, but I'm pretty sure it didn't look like that when I moved in, so it probably just needs some love. I whipped out my electrical-fixtures-mr-fix-it hat and went to work. Jostling the thing around I learned that some of the clips had just come dislodged, probably in the wake of our great, hulking, steel, neighbor, FrontRunner. A little tweaking, a little profanity, and a lot of plaster-dust in my eyes later, I declared the fan fixed.
Hero!
Nope.
While still wiping the plaster dust from my watery eyes, I hiked up to brag to Maleen about how awesome her husband is. I found the master bedroom light fixture hanging askance. Hmmm. "I don't think that used to look like that," I humphed to myself as I grabbed a chair. I rounded up my flashlight, shut off the power, and took to removing the light fixture. I found the nitwit who originally hung the fixture nearly a decade ago didn't use the proper screws and the fixture was now slipping under its own weight. I replaced the screws and ta-ta! No weird angles. I put the bulbs back in and switched the light on to bathe my room in light. (Now if I can just get all that fiberglass itchiness off me!)
Hero!
*Raises arms and cautiously shifts eyes from one side to the other, waiting for another project to rear its head.*
Seeing none, I hereby declare—by the power vested in me—HERO! (Until next week...)
2 comments:
I shudder to think how much we would have spent paying somebody to do all those things you did. Actually, I can't imagine either Bill or me getting into the cramped uncomfortable position to work on the washing machine. I, for one, would never be able to get up again! Bravo for being the handy-man of the house.
Good work, it only took a billion tries to fix it! I like how I say that like I would have been able to do anything at all.
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