While I may not be the most handy person on the planet I do love tools and using them for their intended use rather than say as a weapon. Installing appliances, putting together cheap IKEA furniture, and/or tinkering with automotive parts is an enjoyable experience. At least that's how it starts out. Normally when I try to apply my handy craft to a particular piece of machinery it ends up with me cursing various Roman gods and I find myself making the more problems than the one I intended to fix.Reading this would make one assume that I would finally give up on the idea of being a do-it-yourself kind of person, but no my stubborn ass feels it's appropriate to tackle any and all mechanical problems myself before I call an expert and pay out the nose. But the other day something wonderful happened.
The downstairs toilet had issues. After one flush the toilet kept running for quite a while as the water bill crept up. I opened the back toilet cover and pulled up the floater noticing that it wasn't resetting itself properly. After a little investigation I noticed the screw that held the floater in place was really loose so I brought out the screwdriver and tightened it to a reasonable level.
I hesitated on flushing again to test the results. What would happen? Would my roommate find me covered in toilet water, screaming profanities, and trying to rip the whole unit out of the wall in frustration? Would that evening entail an all nighter trying to figure out what I did wrong? Would I have to make an emergency call to a professional while the basement was flooding?
It worked. I fixed an appliance designed to rid the house of human waste. I probably spent less than ten minutes total repairing the problem. Now most people wouldn't be this thrilled with simple repair, but the fact that nothing got damaged, including myself, made me feel so manly I wanted to go barbecue an elk I just hunted with a gurka knife...with beer...oh and strippers. Yeah I'd be barbecuing while drinking beer and serving the meat to exotic dancers.
Sadly that last part did not insue.
"My mom said the only reason men are alive is for lawn care and vehicle maintenance." - Tim Allen
3 comments:
Men make me giggle as i've never had that urge to fix things myself....ever. Granted, i'm glad some do as I always call my father in times of need, so i'm thankful he's like you haha.
Actually yesterday I did something myself, put air in the tires for the 1st time ever. Guess what, I put too much in. (i'll blog about it later) Needles to say I tell my dad all proud that I did something by myself. He gets out his handy tire tool, checks the amount of air and then releases what i've put in while shaking his head.
Good work. You started a post writing about a broken toilet and turned it into beer and strippers and barbecued elk.
I know this "overblown feeling of accomplishment" well. It just about doubles when you buy a house and have to fix something yourself.
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