The continuing saga of … un-Handy Man!
Pat Fule
Fule for Thought
Before I can regale (good word, eh? … and I even have a PE Degree!) you with a recent screw up in my attempts to fix things, I do have to provide a little history.
This is also for Bill, who’s never read my column (ouch), but his wife Margaret has! Almost 30 years ago, Deb and I bought our first house. We were moving a water bed (yes, that one!) down to the undeveloped basement. To save time and effort, we had removed one end of the wood frame, so we could kind of “fold” the other 3 boards. This part went great and we got everything into the basement. After we got the platform in the right spot, I re-attached the missing bed board. All I needed now, was for Deb to help me move it onto the platform. I was not expecting laughter from her!
“Come on, what’s so funny … just help me carry it over there and I can attach it,” I grumbled.
There was more laughter, followed by more grumbling from me.
I said, “look Debbie, uh hah, hah, but just give me a quick hand carrying it over there … then I’m fine.”
Her only reply was: “look where you’ve built it, Pat!”
That’s when I did indeed, look. I had built the frame around the basement telepost! There was no way to move it anywhere! It was hard to recover from this degree of dumbness (and yes, that’s a word!).
So later, when I finally had the platform and frame together, I filled the bed with water. However, I put too much water in the bed, and I had to use the same garden hose to drain out some! So, I sat near the floor drain, and sucked on the end of the hose to get the water flow going. Of course, this would also be the time when Debbie came down to check on me. I was flustered, and frustrated that I couldn’t get the bed to drain.
“Uh, Pat,” Deb commented.
“What now, Deb … look, I just have to drain a little out … it’s not a big deal,” was all I got out.
“Uh, Pat … don’t you have to connect the other end of the hose to the actual bed?!” You can’t argue with the truth, can you?
I told you those stories so that, to tell you this. When I have to fix, or build something … my stress level rises, because I know there will be problems that only happen to me!
The latest was what should have been a simple task. After conning Deb into a new, bigger flat screen, Breanne’s boyfriend and I put the “feet” on the bottom of the TV and lifted it to its new wooden stand.
“That’s weird,” said Kody.
Of course, I hadn’t noticed that the TV had a slight backward lean. We fiddled, hummed and hawed for a while, then put it back down on the carpet, to see if we’d put the feet on wrong. Of course, we hadn’t, and we lifted it back. It still had a backward lean, so because I hate waiting and thinking too much, I phoned the 1-800 number for advice. After describing badly to a gentleman on the other side of the world, that my new TV was leaning backward, and the screen was slightly turned up to the ceiling, I was met with silence. He said he’d if I’d just hold, he’d discuss this with the other techs. Now, to me, this means that he’s gone back to his pals to play back our conversation, and have a good laugh! When he finally came back, I beat him to the punch.
“I bet you’ve never heard of this problem before, have you? “ I asked. “No, we’ve never had this happen yet,” was his response.
I knew right there that I had done it again, I just didn’t know how!
So, Debbie came down to see the TV’s new, glorious picture, but we had no progress. We explained the problem, and she instantly went upstairs, only to return with a level!
“Did you guys check to see if the stand is level?” she asked. (Of course, we didn’t check to see if the stand was level … who does that?!).
It wasn’t level. After about a half hour of fretting, and an embarrassing call to God knows where, she solved the problem in seconds! This is another example why I hate any kind of set up.
I never believe it when packaging says: “assembly is easy, and fool proof,” because I know … it ain’t FULE- proof!
(“Fule for Thought” is a slice of life humourous column that appears in the Strathmore Times, written by long-time resident, town councillor, high school teacher, coach, husband and father of two – Pat Fule. If you would like to get in touch with Pat, you can send him an e-mail at Pat.fule@shaw.ca)