If It’s Broke, Don’t Fix It...

Or fix it in a really half-assed way. There’s an antique lamp in our house that I like very much. To turn it on here’s what I have to do. Turn the switch, which has an F embossed on it, so that the F is standing on its head. Then jiggle the switch a few times. If that doesn’t work, then I have to grasp the cord near the plug and move it slowly in a counter-clockwise direction. This is how I've been turning on the lamp for at least 10 years. I do actually know how to rewire a lamp, but until the day when I cannot get it to turn on at all, I will continue to use this method.

As I was performing this delicate operation this evening, it occurred to me that there are quite a few things in our house that would not pass muster if there were any sort of handyman or handywoman living here. For example:

• When the U-shaped pipe under the bathroom sink sprang a leak, I called up my dad, the Master of Half-Assed Repairs, to get some input. He suggested wrapping it with electrical tape and then, for good measure, slapping some duct tape over the electrical tape. Problem solved.*
• When the strike plate came loose from our bedroom door, B determined that a product known as Liquid Wood (I think) would fill in the spots where the wood had crumbled away. After waiting an eternity for the Liquid Wood to petrify (or whatever it is supposed to do), he was able to screw the strike plate back on. It’s fallen off once, but he patched it back up with Liquid Wood, and we're now back in business.
• When the wooden stick that opens our louvered blinds snapped off in my hand, B made a beeline for the crazy glue, which along with an ancient screwdriver are really the only two tools he ever employs when making a repair.
  

To give B his due, I should say that he is one of these computer wizard types and has pulled my computer from the flames more than once. In fact, I don’t know if I could run my business without his geeky know-how. So, given the choice of a guy with a fully stocked toolbelt or a guy who can resurrect a hard drive after it’s gone kerflooey, I’ll take the latter--if I can’t have both.

*Sure we could have called a plumber, but that’s the kind of repair that, as a responsible homeowner, you are supposed to innately know how to do. It’s embarrassing to call a plumber for that, not to mention spendy. We’re waiting until some other plumbing thing goes wrong and then we’ll call a plumber and say (the gooky tape will have been removed), “Oh, by the way, could you fix this thing under the sink? It just now all of a sudden started leaking.” I think it’s a good plan.