30.11.07

There are some people who are meant to fix things around the house with out the need to call in a handy man.

There are others who think that because they live in a land that purports the men only need gumboots, a black singlet and a piece of number 8 wire to fix anything that they should attempt to fix something they have no idea about.

My Father is an example of the first - built a house in the Far North for us to enjoy, showed me how to build a huge retaining wall that rivals sections of the one they talk about in China, maintains a 12 acre property which includes need of machinery, carpentry and animal husbandry and all this on the weekend after very long hours in the various business roles he plays.

I am an example of the second.

Years ago I bought a dryer. In the first week it made scratching sounds so I wisely called in the warrantee people. The workman was very efficient and took the back off and did some thing with his hands and possibly a tool and in no time the machine was back on the wall working very smoothly.

A month later and Heidi noted the noise again.

Hah - I said, I observed the workman and know how to fix this.

Even before Heidi had seen me screw things up (obviously the beginning of our relationship) she questioned the wisdom of this, but no I cut her off in mid sentence.

I proceeded to take the back off the dryer and then with my unskilled hands took grip of the inner barrel (just like the workman) and gave it a little twist, that didn't seem enough so gave another twist which produced results. The barrel dropped inside the casing. That should have been a bloody big clue but no, I continued until Heidi called in the workman.

The receipt he left read "arrived at appointment, found dryer in various levels of disrepair……"

Then there was the time I had to cut out a section of gib for replacement (the holes may have occurred when my Correctional Cell phone went through the wall, whilst comforted in hand). The gib stopper told me to cut to size and the only thing was to ensure to look out for electrical wiring.

Which I thought I had done.

I removed the section of gib and was very pleased this came out in one piece, it was then I noted the mains wire leading down between my legs to the only electrical socket in the hall.

And now to last week.

The security alarm had been beeping for days with the light indicating a low battery. One could silence the beeping for 10 minutes though it would then start again, this of course is no good for sleeping.

Hah - I thought.

I located the big white thing in the hall and proceeded to remove the cover. Various wires were present and I unscrewed these one at a time to silence the annoying beep. Nothing seemed to work though, even after unhooking all connections so I removed it from the wall and looked at the back, this had a huge white wire and some copper coil, though I was still unable to achieve anything so left the thing hanging from the wall, happy in the knowledge I had saved the Alarm Technician some time.

Heidi phoned me at work when the technician arrived to ask me where the battery for the alarm was.

"What do you mean? It's obviously hanging in the hall ready for him to replace."

"No, that's the door bell, it's attached to the mains, he says you could have killed yourself."

"I guess that explains the arcing blue flashes I saw"



No doubt I will receive another interesting receipt for work completed, though am going to lay off fixing things for a while,

If not for Heidi's piece of mind for the insurance company's.




The Grey Madness