Relative Something

This place has been lacking a bit of color lately, so I’m posting this image to properly represent the season. Before you know it, I won’t need to mow the yard and I’ll be putting away hoses, but you couldn’t tell from the warm weather we’ve been enjoying lately. I needed to work late yesterday and wasn’t able to see out any windows until about 7:30 p.m. and boy was I shocked at how dark it was already. Then I stepped out to find it feeling middle-of-the-day balmy. I wished I was at a high school football game, enjoying the ideal evening.

On my way home, I decided to take care of a long-neglected chore and stopped to buy a new shower head. Have you seen the recent news reports that bacteria growing in these fixtures gets blasted into the air when we shower? Ours was already slated for replacement because it is growing visible accumulations of, most likely, nasty stuff, even after having been soaked in vinegar to extend its life once already. The news helped push me to finally take action, but after monkeying around with that one simple chore, I was reminded of why I am so reluctant to face these kinds of projects.

There is always some hassle that arises to cultivate my frustration. Lesson for me to learn here, anyone? I only hesitated a reasonable amount over the difficulty of making a decision of which shower head to pick, out of the 20-some varieties on display at the super-store of home stuff. I was then lucky enough to be able to check out with a real live clerk. Traffic at that hour was slim and the drive home in the beautiful evening actually pleasant. There was even minimal difficulty cutting the new shower head out of its bomb-proof plastic case. Things were sailing along pretty well.

Maybe I became a bit impatient. When I couldn’t find the correct size wrench, I decided that I could improvise a tool to suffice for such a simple project and not let something like that trip me up. I was on a roll and wanted to keep up my momentum. I struggled a bit harder than I thought should be necessary to get the old head off and then wrapped the threads with new teflon tape. After threading the new head onto the pipe, I turned on the water and walaa! That should do it.

But, NOOOOoooooo. There is a little bubble of water coming out of the base of the threads. I use my incorrect tools to try snugging it a little tighter. No change. My perfectionism kicks in and I decide I can’t leave it as is. I will remove it to reapply the tape. But now it is really hard to turn. I scratch it up because I don’t have the correct wrench and then get it off to see there is no obvious problem. I put tape on again, covering more of the threads than I had the first time. I scratch it up some more while turning it and then apply water pressure. Still leaks. I try snugging tighter than I feel it is meant to go. Still leaks. Perfectionist frustration meter is in the red zone.

It’s a shower head. Water drips off of it. What’s the problem with that? I’m pretty sure it shouldn’t matter, but it bugs the heck out of me. Instead of enjoying the clean, new fixture, I will always notice that I installed it with a leak. And I will regret the next chore on the to-do list that I’ve been neglecting, even before I get to it. Unless, maybe, I discover the lesson I have before me…

Talking Home Improvement

Words & Music by Charlie Maguire © Mello-Jamin Music. All rights reserved.

Now gather around this won’t take long
“Talking Home Improvement” is the name of this song
Do it yourself, and many try, as soon as the ink on the deed is dry
They can’t wait!
Catastrophic Carpentry is what I call it
That’s when you learn that wood is sold by the foot
And ends up costing an arm and a leg!

I don’t know much about it myself
But I work on my home like everyone else
I feel like a sheriff in an outlaw town, I’ve got a hammer on each hip when I walk around
Just like in the movies
“All right water heater, this house ain’t big enough for the both of us. Ok, chimney…draw!”

When I’ve got to fix something I’m not scared
I have this great big book on home repair
Cost me sixteen dollars and it weighs ten pounds
But I’m saving money, they told me down at the hardware store
They know me on sight down there
I save hundreds of dollars there every week!

I’ve got a power sander, a power saw, a power drill, and a whole lot more
And every time I plug them in
My electric meter starts to grin
Sure saves me time though
I can make twice as many mistakes
I am a home owner, and I do it over
Look out you carpenters!

On the weekends if I’m not too tired
I take a trip down to the lumber yard
Walk through the sheds, and down the aisles
Buy stuff for my domicile
There is a whole bunch of us down there
Bandages on our hands, blisters, all milling around
Trying to find someone who knows what they’re doing!

So if you miss me hanging around
You’ll find me up in my part of town
Sanding a floor, putting up a shelf
Learning to do it all myself–
With a two-by-four, and a four-by-ten
Tuck point, baseboard, weatherstripping
Screwdriver, sheet rock, bit and brace
Nail set, hammer, chisel, hacksaw blade
Zip Strip, miter box, pencil line
And the banker says it will all be mine,
In about 30 years time…Whoopie!
I ought to have the kitchen done by then!
Then I can go out and mow the lawn!