Household Tools I Might Be Able To Use
I know people who can do some amazing things when they put their minds to it. I know people who have built airplanes and finished basements. I know people who have installed new dishwashers where none existed, before. I know people who used to tune-up their own cars. Folks who train their own pets. Many dozens of people who can cook.
In truth, I suspect everyone has at least one talent we might find lacking in someone else… or several dozen someone elses.
I can do… some things. I can teach just about anybody just about anything. Want to know how airplanes work? I’ve helped people pass their FAA Private Pilot Practical Exam—what we all used to call “The Written” test. Want to understand how Stocks and Bonds differ and how the markets for each work? How about the seven things you have to do to create a standards-compliant Web page that can be viewed and enjoyed on a 55″ HDTV monitor, a 13″ laptop and a 4″ smart phone? I can help you with that.
But I’ve lately been bumping into the limits of my knowledge.
Somewhere along the line, I neglected to learn how to so household repairs. I have worked with people who got severely good at this kind of thing and they were fascinating to listen to. There were two in an office I worked in for fourteen years and they were always bouncing ideas off of one another. One guy almost completely remodeled his home in several years of working in the afternoons and evenings and weekends. You used to enter from the South, and now you come inside from the West, through what used to be a closet. An incredible I-can-do-anything woman at a call center I worked in got bored with her kitchen and tore it out, and then replaced it and you should have seen the photos! The new facility looked like it could have come from a magazine.
I can do some light electrical work. When we first moved in I swapped-out a two-toggle light switch with a rheostat—a dimmer. But several years ago I bought one of those then-new smart thermostats you can adjust from your cell phone and I was so intimidated I am not even sure where it is today. I know it’s all still in the box.
I wish now I’d taken some of the shop classes my school offered. I’m not sure why I didn’t, today. I was deeply into playing guitar in those days and had all of my study halls switched the band room so I played about seven to ten hours a day, many days. My actual classroom time was spent in the back of the room drawing pictures of airplanes and wondering what a boob felt like. So today, I can change a lightbulb, but if there’s anything really involved I need to hire someone to come in and take care of it.
We had a plumber come in this morning and fix our leaky shower. Hundreds of dollars later it’s better, but I don’t have the sense of fulfilment I had when I set the timing on my Chevy, years ago.
People I depend upon tell me the answers lie in a magical world called YouTube. All of my questions and more will be answered there, at the click of a button. We’ll see. But after all these years, I kind of know me by now. And my money says I watch about fourteen hours of Here’s-How-To-Do-It video and then… still hire somebody.
