The Non-Fixer

In a prior post I wrote about how I fix things... at night... in bed...while I am trying to fall asleep. In reality, I do not have a lot of talent for fixing things in the harsh light of day.

The world is full of many interesting people, but I think we are we losing those all-important tinkerers. Today young men and women can work a software package, work a complicated blackberry, program a GPS, and plan a project. But can they change their own oil? Can they fix a clothes dryer? Can they install a window AC? Can they get that old rototiller running again? Can they reset that stupid door hinge that sticks every year? Can they take a machine apart and through examination figure out what is wrong and what can be fixed and what needs to be replaced?

Of course not! Who has the time? Who has the patience to break a nail in these stressful times. And so our land-fills will continue to expand as we toss things that cannot be fixed.

I think tinkerers are really cool people. My 75-year-old neighbor, who was an executive for a well-know company years ago, fixes everything on the farm that he rents out. He also rents out two trailers on this farm and repairs everything that goes wrong inside them as well. His church loves him as he can figure out anything and fix it even if he has to take it home and work on it all weekend! He likes the satisfaction of repairing something rather than throwing it away and replacing it by something new that is probably not as well made.

My dad could fix almost anything. He knew that we didn't have the money to buy new and so he made it work. Both of my brothers (one who owns a small construction company and one who is a retired teacher) also have the ability and patience to fix things rather than toss them. I did not inherit that fixing gene.

This photo above is the refrigerator in my kitchen. Perhaps in my frequency in getting access to my favorite ice cream I opened the bottom freezer too often this week and the refrigerator is trying to tell me something...the handle came off in my hand yesterday! I got out the manual (which anal retentive Tabor filed away carefully) and read it and it does appear that one should be able to slide this handle back on the two clamps without much struggle. It is NOT broken. I have read the directions twice and with a Masters degree still cannot figure it out. I am taking a deep breath and going to tackle it again later when I am more Zen. I can still get into the freezer so there is no panic.

This contrivance in the back seat of my car is my in-house vacuum cleaner. It stopped working also earlier this week. I unplugged, reset breakers, and reset the button on the bottom of the vac resulting in no success. I got out the manual and researched on the Internet. I am guessing that the starter motor on this two-year-old beast is the problem. I called a vacuum repair place and the nice man said I really needed to bring it in if I wanted him to work on it. He proceeded to tell me how to take it off my basement wall. The canister had been installed about 8 feet high, and so, standing on a chair, I managed to lift this heavy piece of machinery, carry it upstairs to the garage, and battled it into the back seat of my car. ( I may not know how to fix things, but I sure as hell lift weights and that does come in handy.)

P.S. For full disclosure, my darling husband, whom I love dearly, could not fix a squeaky hinge if his life depended on it.

P.P.S. If things do come in threes, I wonder what is next.