Although I have several skills and abilities, home maintenance and wood-working are not among them. I have a certain anti-genius when it comes to projects around the house.
I’m hoping that David is not like me in this regard.
Whenever I forget who I am, and attempt a household project, it usually follows a certain pattern:
1) I identify the problem and purchase the necessary supplies.
2) Several months go by. (Although some might credit my natural laziness, there is another explanation.)
3) Kathy makes occasional remarks about how nice it is that I have the supplies for the project.
4) I spend a half-hour rounding up the tools I will need. Kathy helpfully points me to the supplies that have been cluttering up her living room for the past 8 weeks.
5) Cautiously, I begin the project.
6) Something goes wrong. Something always goes wrong.
7) In an attempt to fix whatever goes wrong, I damage the thing I’m trying to fix, and I usually waste about 1/3 of the supplies I purchased.
8) I begin to casually speculate about whether I could burn the house down, and make it look like an accident.
9) I spend several hours trying to get back to where we were, before I started this ill-fated project.
10) I go out and purchase more supplies.
11) I eventually cobble together a solution that mostly addresses whatever went badly wrong.
12) I finish the project, which usually looks like a demented four-year-old has savaged it with a reciprocating saw.
13) I vow to never again get sucked into a home maintenance project.
You can see why (2) above usually lasts several months. It takes me a good while to forget how inept I am.
As it turns out, when you force a caster-sleeve into a hole that is too small, things start to go badly wrong.
Today, I must’ve had a fever, because I attempted three projects, and finished two of them. Although the first project didn’t really accomplish anything, we got off pretty lightly ($16 in supplies, and no permanent damage). The second project was a smashing success, if you don’t mind that the blinds I installed aren’t the same color as the ones to the left or right of it. And so far, there have been no serious losses in the third project.
I was trying to put new casters on Kathy’s computer chair, to make it higher (and so it would roll more easily). Neither objective was achieved.
Never mind that we’ve been without a window blind for 18 months.
Just don’t look too closely at the color of this blind.
I’m telling you, I am a brilliant anti-genius among handymen. Want me to come over and work on your place?
Project 365, Day 18
Tim
I’m so glad we FINALLY have that blind in! Thanks Tim the handy man!
Good laugh to start the day. Thanks.