Handy-person heaven.

I fixed the dripping faucet in the tub on the weekend – and now when I’m in the bath I beam upon my handiwork with tenderness and pride, as opposed to the glare I used to give it as it dripped endlessly in a Chinese water torture kind of a way. It wasn’t as easy as it could have been: the first weekend I tried I realized that I needed a different/better tool. I phoned my dad to ask if there was a specific tool that one uses to take out a screw whose head is stripped. He wasn’t home. Neither was my sister’s boyfriend. I wasn’t assuming that the women I knew wouldn’t know if there is such a tool, but the Hingstons weren’t home either. I thought about phoning some random guy friend. Most of my friends are guys, but I didn’t think I could cross the line of friendship with a tool question. In the end, I phoned a work friend, whose husband had the answer. Or at least an answer. Use something like a chisel to get it out the tiniest bit, then use small vise grips to twist it the rest of the way out. That is in the end what I did, but I had to get a pair of vise grips first. The great thing is that the cartridge that was making the thing drip got replaced, and since I was doing it and not the bun head that put the first one in, the direction you turn the knob for hot is hot and for cold is cold. The old cartridge was in upside down, so when you turned the knob toward the H you got cold water, C got you hot water. So it is perfect now…just so long as we all remember that direction for hot water is different than it has been for ten years.

I do like fixing things if they’re mechanical, and most plumbing is fun too, so it wasn’t a bad job for a Sunday. I never try to do anything electrical when it breaks down (yes, I can hear that collective sigh of relief), and whilst I wouldn’t mind learning how to do carpenter type things, no one will loan me the tools. It’s almost as if my father has phoned everyone and told them not to loan me anything that plugs in that can, in the wrong hands, take off a hand or a foot. The few times I’ve asked someone for say a saw, I usually get “ummm…why don’t I just come over and saw whatever you’re working on for you?” Strange.