Recently, I fixed several things I doubted could be fixed, especially by me.
I am not here to indict my husband. He married me because I tend to be a smidge independent. Had I waited for him to fix things, I would not have tasted this lovely feeling of control over my environment (or is empowerment the currently appropriate term?). Whatever it is, it feels grand.
Generally, fixing things takes time I don’t have, and lots of patience which rarely possess. My motivation has to be strong.
However, at the end of any given month and paycheck, the desire to throw things out and buy new ones, gets pretty thin.
I have been known to go on a rampage with the WD-40 and my hot glue gun. I unstuck car door locks, renewed sliding glass door tracks and pried that annoying water-saver screen out of my new faucet. I put a stop to the rust around one bathroom faucet with grout and glued a cracked toilet seat that rudely pinched every guest who sat upon it.
My absolute favorite success was one I really shouldn’t admit. The method I chose has gotten me into lots of trouble in the past. Still, I will never give it up entirely, since it occasionally works so darn well.
Somehow, a small, wayward piece of paper drifted down into my gas gauge, trapped beneath two layers of dashboard plastic.
It not only blocked my view of the gauge but also jammed it at about the quarter-tank mark. These things happen when your car is about to celebrate its 10th birthday.
After serious planning to take it into the dealer for a new gauge, I lost patience (as noted above). In a “what-the-heck-it’s-broken-anyway” moment, I took a heavy object and whacked the living fire out of the gas gauge area of the dash.
Guess what? That nasty little piece of paper dropped out of sight and my gauge was back to normal. I not only saved myself the cost of a trip to the dealer, I gained a lovely drop in my blood pressure.
“If I have to, I can do anything.” But most of the time I still wish I didn’t have to.
