The real world is an ugly place. Let’s
face the truth here, we have our own images of ourselves and we dream of how
things are going to be just as soon as we accomplish our next goal.
Let us say, for example, we dream of
buying a home and moving to Ohio to live in it. Then things will be perfect. The cost of living will drop and we
will live merrily, skipping down the sidewalks of life between the towering
snowdrifts.
Ah, the imagery of it all.
Well, not so fast, Mr. Sleepwalker. It
turns out the total amount of stuff you need to know just to live in a home you
own is fantastic. And, Bubba, you’d better learn it all before the next winter
shows up.
If you own a home and rent it out, you
call a handyman. If you rent the place where you live, you call the landlord.
But if you own the place where you live, you hafta fix stuff yourself.
The condo we now own was previously
owned by a very nice woman who, apparently, weighed less than yours truly. The
first casualty of the change in ownership was one of the toilet seats. The
hinge for the seat cover gave way and it was time to change the entire
assembly.
After only two trips to the home
improvement center, your humble writer brought home the manufactured product of
the proper size and shape. Happily, a trip to Pennsylvania was in the offing
and the repair job was put on hold for a while. But even thrill seekers prefer
to be stable at certain times and eventually the tools were selected from the
garage and brought forth for the work at hand.
So to speak.
Now, it must seem obvious to toilet
seat manufactures that any home improvement store shopper automatically has the
knowledge required in order to make this repair. We know this is true because
virtually no instructions are included with the assembly. The only instruction
on the box the Bemis seat we bought came in was, “Do not remove hinge covers.”
Sadly, at least one of us assumes
nothing printed on the outside of the box is an actual instruction and the hinge
covers were removed, first thing. Hinge covers must be very important or you’d
be allowed to remove them, right? So the product is now irreversibly damaged.
Still, we soldier on and eventually
discover that the plastic bolt does not go through the little plastic circle
protected so valiantly by the hinge cover. Instead, the plastic bolt must be
slipped through a canal through the porcelain put there for the purpose and the
bolt is tightened from the underside of the bowl flange with a plastic wing nut
and the little thing formerly protected by the hinge cover is jammed down over
the top of the bolt.
Got that?
So, flushed with success, we
heroically clamber down the stairs in the expectation that we’ll be showered
with praise. In less than 60 minutes, the toilet seat has been replaced.
At that point it is discovered the
garbage disposal in the kitchen sink is not working. A garbage disposal
consists of sharp edges, which you can’t see, controlled by electricity, which
few people understand. For that, we call a plumber.
You gotta pick your battles.
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