Published: July 15, 2008 10:52 pm            

Column: John Cannon: Mr. fix-it I am not

If my wife was seeking a handyman when she married me, she sure made a lousy choice.

Put me in front of a word processor, and I can make a decent living. Put a hammer, saw or screwdriver in my hand, and I am downright dangerous. I’m not a complete idiot when it comes to making home repairs, but if anything, the fact that I know a little bit makes me even more dangerous. I know just enough to really make a mess of a project.

Nevertheless, whenever there is a need for a handyman around the house, my wife remains confident that I am up to the task. I have no idea what gives her that confidence.

On a recent weekend, she gave me a simple assignment: Replace the electrical light socket on a overhead fan.

Piece of cake, I thought. While I generally avoid anything electrical, I do know enough to do the basics. I had replaced similar sockets many times.

Armed with a new light fixture, I launched into the project figuring it would take me about 10 minutes to complete. Sure enough, in less than the time is took the Reds to complete a half inning of play in the game I was listening to on the radio, I had completed my work.

But when I flipped the switch, nothing happened. I redid my wiring. Still nothing. I changed the light bulb. Still no light.

The next day I called a friend for help. He come over immediately.

“I thought I had it wired right,” I said. “I guess I’m just too dumb to know what I’m doing.”

He looked at my work. He tried pulling the two chains, one on the new switch and the other on the fan.

“That won’t work,” I said. “I’ve already tried that.”

He pulled the chain again and the light came on.

“You aren’t so dumb,” he said. “You had it wired right.”

“No, I’m just too dumb to know when I have fixed it,” I sighed.

Less than a week later, the icemaker in our refrigerator started working for the first time in months.

Well, that’s not quite right. Instead of no water coming through the line leading to the icemaker, too much water was coming through the line. The only way we were able to stop the flow of water was to shut the water off to the entire house. By that time, the portion of the basement located below the fridge was partially flooded, one basement light fixture was full of water, and three basement ceiling panels were ruined.

I pulled the refrigerator from the wall — no easy task — to look at the water line. It looked fine.

I told my wife I needed to check above the drop ceiling in the basement to see where the water line went. Not trusting me, she said she would jet call a plumber the next day.

“But tomorrow is Saturday,” I said. “I don’t want to pay the plumber time and a half to fix something I may be able to fix myself.”

“Well, we’ll just wait until Monday or Tuesday to call the plumber,” she said.

“But that means we won’t have any water in the house until then,” I said.

“We’ll survive,” she said.

By Saturday morning she had changed her mind. I went to the local hardware store for advice on how to attack the problem and to purchase the necessary items.

I traced the line to a pipe in what used to be our basement laundry room, but now a freezer occupied the space where the washer and dryer were. I said I would have to move the freezer to get to the source of the problem.

My wife balked. She didn’t want me to touch the freezer.

By Sunday afternoon she had changed her mind. I moved the freezer, moved a ceiling panel and climbed a ladder to get a closer look. I’m glad I did. It probably saved me $50 or $60 — or whatever the plumber would have charged.

There was a valve where the plastic tube from the fridge connected to a main water line. I shut it off. Problem solved.

“Yea! You fixed it!” my wife cheered.

“No, I shut off the valve,” I explained.

Of course, I still have to replace the three ceiling tiles. I just hope I can find matching ones. Then comes the challenge of cutting one of the tiles to go around the chimney.

Oh well, I’ll worry about that tomorrow. Or the next day. Or six months from now. Or for as long as my wife allows me to put it off.

JOHN CANNON can be reached at jcannon@dailyindependent.com or at (606) 326-2649.

        

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