DIY – Not on Your Life

Yeah, that quote really doesn’t apply to me. More like, if you really want to screw something up, go ahead and try to do it yourself. I’m not a fixer up kind of guy. I know nothing about repairing anything. HGTV is one channel I could easily do without.

I could blame it on my Dad because I think you are supposed to learn this stuff somewhere. He was a college professor and rarely tried to do anything around the house. These things usually involved my Mom trying to help and the two of them arguing because neither one was great a communicating. Must have scared me off from wanting to do anything like that myself.

And also because it isn’t just the doing. There is a certain amount of planning involved and then there are trips to various places to buy what you need. All becomes way too much of a production for me. Plus, I have to admit that my hands are probably only good for typing. I’m just not good at that type of thing.

So I’m super happy that there are people who are good at these things and you can pay them to come to your house and fix stuff. Yesterday, we had two plumbers in the house most of the day. Nothing needed fixing but it was pointed out to us that there were some things that could use attention.

One was some kind of pump that exists to remove sewage from the house and send it on its way. Ours wasn’t broken but was original to the house and so we got 30 some good years out of it but nothing it designed to last forever. Again, we could have just left it alone but it is one of those things that you really don’t want to deal with if it actually breaks so it made sense to replace it.

Then, all the shut off valves on the sinks and things were frozen because they were old. Plus, they were the types that could easily break if you tried to force them open. We did have this happen to a toilet once when my wife was trying to fix something. (She’s not particular handy but is under the illusion that she is). So we know what happens when something like that fails. Again, not something that actually needed to be replaced but sometimes old stuff just needs to be updated so we said go ahead and take care of it.

They did have to shut off the water but the only real problem with that was when we had to clean out the cabinets under the various sinks so they could get in there to make the repairs. I don’t know about you, but I don’t spend a lot of time cleaning under sinks. I mean its in a cabinet for a reason – so nobody can see it. But all of the stuff was a little dusty (maybe a lot dusty) so I ended up with this layer of dirt on my hands and no running water. Good thing I had filled up a water bottle before they shut things off.

But I ended up tossing most of the stuff under my sink away. I stuck it there thinking I might use it someday but then I was looking at everything and wondering why I thought I’d ever use some of it again. So not only did we get some new plumbing stuff but now the cabinet under my sink is mostly empty. Just a little bonus.

The following quote has no relation to the above post. I just thought it was a good quote.