Mr. Fix-it
I needed to get photographic evidence of this today.
This is a picture I will need to show Elliott some day, perhaps when he is a teenager and Shelbi comes into the room saying that something is wrong with the dryer. I'll furtively look around the room and maybe pretend to check the time on my cell phone before Elliott eventually lets out an exaggerated sigh and goes to take a look at it.
In a perfect world, pictures as shown above would be the norm in our family annals. Flip through a photo book and there would be page upon page of Elliott and me building a treehouse together. Elliott and me putting a new roof on the house. Elliott and me with our legs sticking out from under the old family sedan. Unfortunately, scenes like that will simply not occur in our household. I am already looking forward to Elliott surpassing my computer knowledge by the age of 7 and then teaching me how things work. And I am desperately hoping that he will develop a curious mind that makes him want to learn the ins and outs of plumbing or wiring.
You see, I am not what you would call particularly handy. The above photo is of me piecing together a bookshelf we purchased from Target. The box said it should take 20 minutes to assemble. It took me an hour and that was even without the last two steps which were deemed unnecessary by Shelbi. (I think she just wanted me to quit while I was ahead.) About 30 minutes into the project, Elliott climbed off of his chair, picked up a screwdriver and pretended to help. He even stopped watching "Follow That Bird" to do so. It was utterly adorable.
This picture is offered as subtle proof of my lack of abilities. Yes, Elliott is holding a rubber mallet. Why? Because I couldn't find the one hammer I own and instead figured that this mallet that was left at our house by my brother-in-law following a Halloween party three years ago would suffice. Want some better examples of my ineptitude? Sure you do.
A couple of weeks ago, while doing dishes, our garbage disposal seemingly crapped out on us. The disposal was no more than two years old which made me livid. My two fix-it strategies involved A. Opening the cabinet under the sink and looking at the disposal sternly and B. Flipping the disposal switch on and off with varying degrees of intensity. So, after about 45 minutes, I was furious and ready to plop down another $150. Just like that. After about three hours of leaving our backed up sink full of enormous food particles to its own devices and me fuming in the other room, I finally came to my senses, figured it couldn't have possibly broken so quickly and discovered the reset button on the bottom of the disposal. Problem solved. But the kicker was that I was legitimately proud of myself for not throwing a large sum of money away and for pressing a small red button. So much so that I truly expected Shelbi to ooh and ahh over my accomplishment.
As another example, a section of our fence in the backyard fell down roughly a year before Elliott was born. It is still down no thanks to the 75-year-old grandmother living next door. I have every intention to fix it. I want to fix it. In theory, I should be able to fix it. But every time I go back to survey the potential construction site I realize that I literally have no idea where to even begin. Do I need to sink a new post? Do I need cement for that? Does Home Depot sell boards the size of my pre-existing fence sections? Do I need a circular saw? Are the chances that I could actually fix the fence higher or lower than the chances that I will wake up one morning and it will have magically fixed itself? There is part of me that wants to send Shelbi and Elliott away for a weekend, have my brother Luke (who is roughly as handy as I am) over for 48 hours with the intention of fixing the fence and then just see what happens. I would absolutely hire a film crew to do a documentary on those two days because the results would be fascinating. Pretty much any scenario is on the table including us burning the entire fence down, someone taking a nail in the head and dropping $1200 at Lowe's somehow. "You boys sure you need a soldering iron and a generator for this job?"
But, at the very least, I now can say that Elliott and I built something together, even if he was only interested for about 30 seconds before running out of the room with the screwdriver and stabbing his oversized teddy bear with it.
him want to learn the ins and outs of plumbing or wiring.
that is a funny line there Matt love love love what you say in your blog there soo funny!!!
attie
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I love that you're not handy. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who doesn't have innate taking-care-of-household abilities.
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I love your honesty in assessing your limited fix-it skills. And your hope that Elliott might be handier than you is not without some merit. Such an aptitude seems not to be so much hereditary or engendered as it is the luck of the draw (or a special blessing . . . if you are inclined to see things that way).
Anyway . . .time will tell.
Good luck 'til then
G'pa Jack
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Hope to read more updates on your site soon
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I am desperately hoping that he will develop a curious mind that makes him want to learn the ins and outs of plumbing or wiring.
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Everything from the little house was in the wagon, except the beds and tables and chairs. They did not need to take these, because Pa could always make new ones.
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I think that rather than condemning Islam, Islam needs to be studied by those who are sincere.
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Don't simply retire from something; have something to retire to.
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I'd love to work in America, some of my favourite films come from America.
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