Bad Housekeeping
(posted 6/7/12)
I walked down to the kitchen
this morning to discover that Ginger had knocked over a plant stand, sending
the potted Christmas cactus askew and dirt everywhere. Heading down to the basement to get the
vacuum, I noticed the backlog of ironing piling up on the ironing board, and
spilling over in to two baskets below. I
hate ironing and put the chore off until I absolutely have to do it. I realize it is just about getting to that tipping
point. Sigh. I’ll get to it after I clean up the
kitchen. Which involved the broom and
dustpan, naturally. And after I emptied
the dustpan in the trash can, which sits in a rollout cabinet, the cabinet door
refused to stay closed. This is a
particularly irritating ongoing maintenance issue. It is the only broken thing in our kitchen
which we can’t seem to permanently fix.
We’ve tried everything short of Duct tape to keep the trash cabinet door
closed, but it has a crafty way of slowly sliding open just when you think
you’ve got it shut for good. There’s a
magnet at the back of the bin which needs adjusting every now and then, and I
guess it is about that time.
While I was at it, I thought I’d
change one of the hallway recessed light bulbs which burned out weeks ago. And wouldn’t you know, the bulb broke in my
hand leaving the base in the socket.
I’ve had this happen before. Haven’t
you? No big deal. It requires a pair of
needle-nosed pliers. Well if you are
really going to do it right, you should have two pairs of pliers, and safety
glasses, and keep your mouth closed. I
have lost track of the safety glasses.
I’d just have to hope for the best.
Luckily, the base came out without too much trouble, and no glass shards
ended up where they don’t belong. My hunch
about burned out light bulbs is that the longer they sit there
the more likely they are to corrode and get stuck in the socket. Hmmm . . .
I suppose every house has its
ups and downs. Stuff happens and you
just have to do your best to keep up with it.
No matter how organized I try to be about routine home maintenance,
sometimes it gets ahead of me. I have a
schedule which I keep on my calendar on my computer. When it comes time for the monthly or
quarterly or yearly chore, a reminder pops up on my screen saying ‘change
baking soda in refrigerator’ or ‘flip mattresses’ or whatever. It is a wonderful system, because I don’t
have to try to recall when was the last time we changed the water filter in the
coffee maker or had the furnace serviced.
However it is only effective as long as we actually do the things it reminds
us to do. I can ignore the reminders and
the list that pops up just grows longer.
Right now, for instance, there are 18 chores awaiting attention. (I will admit, some chores are so unappealing
that weeks go by and they make a second appearance on the reminder list before
we finally tackle them.) Like I said, I’m
in a bit of a bad patch in the housekeeping department.
Ah well, I know from experience
that things will improve around here. The
pace of our life will hit a lull and we’ll attend to the 18 chores on the list. Sooner rather than later I expect I’ll be
calling Buzzy, our pest control guy, to reclaim our mailbox from the ants. And as for the garage door, I am sure there’s
a garage door repair service I can call.
Or an exorcist.
###
Holly’s Adventure with the Cable Company
(posted 2/29/12)
I almost threw it away.
It looked like any other piece of junk mail that lands in our mailbox
with regularity. It said “Important
Customer Information Enclosed!” Yeah, right.
They just want you to open the envelope to read their ad for some new
product. Only this time, they weren’t
kidding. There actually was important customer information. Our cable service provider is upgrading its
service! They’re going all-digital! And they’re scrambling the signal! Everyone needs to install cable boxes or else
. . . no more TV!
I couldn’t believe it.
You mean I have to take time out of my day to order these boxes and then
I have to set them up? I called the
company in disbelief. The chipper
customer service representative was very helpful. Yes, indeed, you have to install these
boxes. Or if you’d like – for an
additional fee -- you can upgrade to fancier boxes, which will provide oh so
much more entertainment options. But I’m
very sorry, ma’am, I can’t take your order.
What?! What do you mean you can’t
take my order?! Turns out it is my husband’s name on the account. Only he can place an order. But in actual fact he can’t place the order
because he’s totally swamped and under the gun at work and doesn’t have time
for any of this.
I’m getting mad now. The next day, I drove over to the cable company’s office. I should have known I was fighting a lost cause when I walked into the lobby and there was a long queue of folks all waiting patiently for their turn with the lady at the counter. By the time I got to the counter, the sarcastic rep simply raised her eyebrows and gave me one of those looks. Like, 'I can’t believe you dared show up here to try that on me! Posing as this man’s wife? I mean really.' . . . I had to leave before I hit her.
I’m getting mad now. The next day, I drove over to the cable company’s office. I should have known I was fighting a lost cause when I walked into the lobby and there was a long queue of folks all waiting patiently for their turn with the lady at the counter. By the time I got to the counter, the sarcastic rep simply raised her eyebrows and gave me one of those looks. Like, 'I can’t believe you dared show up here to try that on me! Posing as this man’s wife? I mean really.' . . . I had to leave before I hit her.
Now I’m getting really mad. The following day I called the cable company before Peter left for work. Passed the phone over to him so he could authorize adding my name to the account. Then drove – again – to the company to pick up the blasted boxes. The same gal, suspicious as ever, reluctantly stuffed everything in a bag and handed it over. I wanted to know are the instructions included? Is it easy? I mean really easy for someone like me who doesn’t have a clue what all these cables and boxes and cords are for? She gave me another one of those looks and I slunk away, mumbling gratitude for her assistance.
Home again, I opened the first box. Right on top was a folded brochure. ‘Easy Installation Instructions’, it said on
the front. It opened up like a very
large map, to the unbelievable width of five feet! Oh dear, I thought to myself. This is not good. My heart rate slowed down a bit, though, when
I realized the reason for the super-sized instruction brochure was the fact
that it was written in 36 point type, with an illustration accompanying each
step. As if they thought it would be
easier to understand if it was written really large, and half explained in
pictures. Who are they kidding? It took me half an hour just to decipher the
first illustration. I couldn’t face it .
. .
You know, I really resent this. I don’t even watch TV that much. I don’t want to know how the cable signal interfaces with my television. I don’t want to revisit the mess of cables behind the TV which have been sitting there doing their thing perfectly well, thank you very much, since we moved in and set the TV up. I don’t want to switch over to a newer, fancier remote control. What’s wrong with the one I already have? I worked myself up into a good lather over all this. It is part of the Luddite Nature. But finally I came to my senses and decided I should make an attempt to move our household into the 21st century, where television viewing is concerned.
You know, I really resent this. I don’t even watch TV that much. I don’t want to know how the cable signal interfaces with my television. I don’t want to revisit the mess of cables behind the TV which have been sitting there doing their thing perfectly well, thank you very much, since we moved in and set the TV up. I don’t want to switch over to a newer, fancier remote control. What’s wrong with the one I already have? I worked myself up into a good lather over all this. It is part of the Luddite Nature. But finally I came to my senses and decided I should make an attempt to move our household into the 21st century, where television viewing is concerned.
So today I opened all the boxes and packages and instruction
manuals and stickers and tape and what-not that was in the bag the lady gave
me. Breathing deeply, I followed the instructions
faithfully. I got all three TVs
connected to their new cable boxes.
Then, following instructions, I called the number to activate the
boxes. Naturally, I did not get to speak
with a real person. I had to
speak with a voice recognition system. This
only added to my stress level, as the android on the other end of the line didn’t
understand that our three televisions are on three different floors in our
house, and I had to run between them to turn them on, find the serial numbers
and activate the remote controls. I kept
hearing “That’s OK, I’ll wait a little longer . . . That’s OK, I’ll wait a
little longer . . . That’s OK . . . “ I
was desperate to complete the instructions before they disconnected the
call. Who knows what would have happened
if I had to start over again!
Then it was time to program the new remote controls. These instructions, unlike the other ones, were microscopic. So small I could hardly read them. And in a language that was beyond me. All techno-speak. I was mystified. Somehow I bumbled my way through them and only had to call customer service one more time. For the life of me I couldn’t get a picture on our main TV. Turns out I had the thing set on channel 4 instead of 3. Duh . . . How embarrassing! But the customer service rep couldn’t have been more friendly. I think they gave these folks extra training, in anticipation of floods of calls from agitated folks like me. He calmly walked me through the series of steps to set up the remote control. Made sure I had a good, clear picture. Made sure I knew that Customer Satisfaction was their Number One Priority. How nice. Dispite my misgivings and my utter frustration and resentment, everything worked out after all! It was all so ultimately satisfying that I felt like I should, I don’t know, head on over to the TV and watch something!
Then it was time to program the new remote controls. These instructions, unlike the other ones, were microscopic. So small I could hardly read them. And in a language that was beyond me. All techno-speak. I was mystified. Somehow I bumbled my way through them and only had to call customer service one more time. For the life of me I couldn’t get a picture on our main TV. Turns out I had the thing set on channel 4 instead of 3. Duh . . . How embarrassing! But the customer service rep couldn’t have been more friendly. I think they gave these folks extra training, in anticipation of floods of calls from agitated folks like me. He calmly walked me through the series of steps to set up the remote control. Made sure I had a good, clear picture. Made sure I knew that Customer Satisfaction was their Number One Priority. How nice. Dispite my misgivings and my utter frustration and resentment, everything worked out after all! It was all so ultimately satisfying that I felt like I should, I don’t know, head on over to the TV and watch something!
###
The Power Wash
(posted 8/30/11)
When it comes to home maintenance projects, nothing compares
to power washing when you want an activity that will result in a supreme sense
of pride and accomplishment at the end of the day. This summer, I decided it was finally time to
power wash the pool deck. We have an
unusually large pool deck, which is made up of four foot by four foot squares
of aggregate concrete. I should say old aggregate concrete. The pool was built about 45 years ago. The squares have tipped and settled here and
there, and the wood in the expansion joints protrudes awkwardly in places,
creating a tripping hazard for pool loungers.
I figured cleaning it up a bit would help counteract these other
flaws.
One fine day early in the summer, shortly after Peter left
for Asia with his students, I headed down to the pool with the power washer,
the electric extension cord, and high hopes of making great progress before
Peter’s return. I got everything hooked
up properly and cranked it up. With 1,650
p.s.i. working for me, I thought the scum would easily blast away. I should add here that my dad advised a
different strategy. “Don’t go for the
wimpy homeowner power washer. What you
need is a professional unit that you can rent for a few days. It will get the job done in half the
time!” Taking into consideration the
hassle factor of finding the supply store in the area that had a power washer
available to rent, I decided not to heed his advice.
Big mistake. First
of all, the scum was years – maybe decades – old and wasn't going to budge for
love or money. Secondly, beneath the
ordinary dirt scum was algae, an
altogether different sort of challenge which requires much patience to deal
with. In short order my lower legs were
covered with scum debris and I started to smell like a swamp. I was attracting flies. (Good thing Peter was out of town!) Finally, picture this: though the water is
coming out of the machine at 1,650 p.s.i., it is coming out in a stream the
diameter of a quarter, at best. So the
power washing motion is little short strokes of back and forth, back and forth,
back and forth until the concrete is blasted clean. It felt like I was cleaning the floor with a
Barbie-sized sponge mop. There I was,
Home Improvement Barbie, creeping inch by inch over endless acreage of filth.
I did the math. A
good 4’ x 4’ square I could knock out in 10 minutes. More often, however, the square had algae (as
mentioned above) or an excessive amount of dirt, and it would take me closer to
15 minutes to get it really clean. Let’s
see, 160 squares at ten to 15 minutes per square would take approximately . . .
forever! I could see my summer stretching before me -- long, excruciating days in the blazing sun, fighting an endless battle against grime. Where is Honey-Do Ken when I
need him??
Somehow I hung in there and got in to a groove. I developed the technique of how to most efficiently
clean each square. I timed myself and
started keeping score, making it a sort of competition. And I started building an awesome Barbie
tan. My abs firmed up as well as my grip strength. This wasn’t so bad after all! Things went along without a hitch until I
flooded a red ant nest between two of the squares. The ants immediately swarmed out of their
soggy home, searching for high ground, which was me. I started dancing around, flicking red ants
off me as fast as I could, forgetting that the wand in my other hand was still
spraying water at 1,650 p.s.i. In the
excitement, I sprayed my foot and blew out the glue holding the outer sole to
the insole of my Tevas. Scratch one pair
of water sandals . . .
Shoeless, I persevered square by square. I’d tackle six or eight squares a day. More than that and I’d start to get cramps in
my hands and my lower back. I slowly but
surely made my way around the pool, working the dirt ‘downhill’ so to speak,
towards the end of the pool that is bordered by trees and shrubs. It is very pretty, to be sure, but all those
trees and shrubs tend to make the deck at that end particularly black and nasty. So I was saving it for last. But then a heat wave struck and I wasn’t
going to stand out in 100 degree weather, tempting heat exhaustion or
sunstroke. Following that, we had a rash
of thunderstorms, again preventing me from my mission. Sadly, Peter came home and the job wasn’t
done. To be honest, by this time I had
run out of steam. I just couldn’t face
that nasty end of the pool, knowing how many long hours it would take to get
the job done.
Let’s hear it for Honey-Do Ken!! Peter took one look at the situation and said
“Let’s do this!” He saw how very far I’d
come and what a tremendous transformation was happening to the deck. (It really was like night and day.) He set out a schedule for that week and we
set to it. He kept us going, even when the
power washer developed a ‘chug’. If you
stopped spraying, it wouldn’t cut off but rather the motor started ‘chugging’,
as if to say, “Don’t stop now! I may not make it if you don’t keep going!” So we kept at it. We took it in turns and before long we were
at the finish line. Peter made sure I got
to do the last square, to have the satisfaction of blasting away that very last
bit of fung. Ahhh………..
Now the only problem with having a spankin’ clean pool
deck is that it makes the path leading to the pool look just awful! Sigh… We’ll put that on the list of things to
do . . . next summer.
###
Anchors Away
(posted 6/17/11)
Today I am trying to reinstall an air duct register that fell down from the ceiling. It fell down from the ceiling because the nimrod who originally mounted it on the drywall ceiling back in the ‘70s did not use anchors or toggle bolts to hold the screws, and without anchors, the screws finally lost their grip after 40 years and slid out, bringing the register down with a loud crash. Thankfully, nobody happened to be standing underneath when it happened!
Drywall is essentially plaster powder compressed between thick sheets of paper. I am the daughter of a drywall contractor, and I know about such things. Drywall makes a beautiful, smooth wall or ceiling, but it can’t bear weight worth a darn. If you want to hang anything heavy from it, you need to use a plastic anchor to hold a screw in place, or better yet, a toggle bolt which has wings that flap open on the back side of the drywall to create a strong hold. (A toggle bolt won’t work in this situation, because the register fits snug up against an air duct, with no room on either side for a toggle bolt to open its wings.) So, cursing, I cleaned up the crumbles of ancient drywall that came down with the register, and set to work installing anchors.
It was not difficult putting an anchor in the first hole in the ceiling. It went in snugly and seemed to stay put. But the second hole was much larger and so the anchor fell right out. After pounding harder with the hammer and thus displacing even more drywall chunks, it amazingly did seem to take hold. Then came the tricky part: mounting the somewhat heavy register up on the ceiling using a power drill. I found myself wishing for another set of hands, but I was home alone so I pressed ahead. Somehow I managed to get the first screw up through the register and into the anchor and – lo and behold – it stayed there! Moving over to the second hole, I discovered that the aforementioned nimrod used two different types of screws, one phillips head and one flat head! Now how am I going to change the drill bit one-handed, while holding the register and loose screw up on the ceiling with the other hand?
Back to square one. I unscrewed the first carefully-installed screw, set down the register, and went back to the workbench for my trusty screwdrivers. Forget the drill. Attempt number two went smoothly, until the very last turn of the screwdriver into the second screw. I overshot it, and the screw stripped the anchor, and spun around loosely in the hole, useless. Again, I unscrewed the first carefully-installed screw, and set down the register. Unfortunately, I would have to resort to patching that big hole after all. Happily I found a tub of plaster repair compound in my trusty workbench, and it wasn’t long at all before I had that hole all plugged up with compound. Once it dries, I’ll hopefully be able to tap a new anchor in there and try again.This reminds me of the time I installed cornices over the windows in my boys’ room when we lived in Brooklyn. We had spent the better part of two years restoring an old brownstone home, and it was down to the finishing touches of décor: paint, trim and curtains. I was quite proud of my cornices, which I constructed and upholstered myself, thanks to Christopher Lowell’s mantra, “You can do it!”; and I was eager to see how they’d look above the three 6-foot windows in their large sunny room. I have never told anyone this story, but the statute of limitations has expired and I can now reveal to you the Stupidest Thing I’ve Ever Done Involving A Ladder:
My plan was to install anchors in the plaster walls, screw heavy-duty screws part way into the anchors, then hang the cornices on those screws by keyhole mounts which I had screwed into the ends of each cornice. This is what the guy at the hardware store suggested, and it sounded like it should work.
My first challenge was to accurately measure and mark the walls where the holes needed to be drilled. It presented a challenge because the cornices were to hang six inches down from the top of a ten foot wall, and I had a six foot ladder. (My hands are literally sweating as I remember this experience.) Well, no problem, I thought, since I am tall and I have long arms. I’ll just climb up and not look down! And I did. Perched half way up that ladder, I measured and re-measured checked with the leveler and marked and double checked my work. No way was I going to do this twice! Then I carefully climbed down to fetch my drill. So far so good. But then, I hit a snag: this wall was an 18” thick brick and plaster wall, built in 1858, and it wasn’t about to give in to a cheap drill bit from K-Mart. “Oh, you need a cement drill bit for that, ma’am,” said the helpful guy at the hardware store. Gee I wish he’d thought to mention that the first time I walked the eight blocks to his store for supplies.
With the new cement drill bit now securely attached to the drill, I attacked the wall with a vengeance. This is tough to do when you are four feet off the ground, arms fully extended, and you can’t exactly see what you are doing. But I persevered. Eventually I got the holes drilled, anchors in, and screws in place. Setting the cornices on the screws was precarious – those things were heavy! Expecting to be done and call it a day, I was shocked to discover that for all my careful measuring, the middle cornice was crooked! One end was plainly off by ¼”. Just enough to look wrong next to the other two. Great. I couldn’t reset the keyhole mount because of the fabric covering the wood. I’d have to re-drill a hole in the wall. But not by much. This is when epic stupidity set in…
Because I was only trying to make a quarter inch adjustment, it wasn’t possible to create a new hole just above the old one without a certain amount of cave-in occurring. I tried. Really I did. But with every turn of the drill, the plaster shattered and fell out of the wall in great gobs. What I ended up with was a huge gaping hole in the wall about as big around as my thumb. I’d have to patch it up and try again. Patch it up with what, exactly? I tried everything. Spackle, Dap, tile caulk, plastic wood, Liquid Nails, Super Glue, you name it. Nothing seemed to want to stay in that hole and set. Anything I tried would immediately ooze its way out the hole. Soon my fingers, shirt sleeves, pants and shoes were covered with dribbles and drabs of failed experiments, and I became more and more angry at the wall for not cooperating. I was about to throw in the towel when I found a tube of epoxy compound at the bottom of the toolbox. “Sets in just 15 minutes!!” the tube proclaimed. Hallelujah! If epoxy won’t adhere to the wall, nothing would, I reasoned, and so I filled that hole up with most of the contents of that tube and then took a lunch break while it set.
Returning to the room a half hour later, I found that the epoxy had done its thing. It was still in the hole and hard as a rock. Super! Now I just had to drill a hole in it to set an anchor. This proved to be even more difficult than the first time around, because the drill bit kept sliding around on the shiny epoxy surface, missing my carefully marked new spot entirely. There could be no do-over’s this time, so in order to get a better angle for the drill, I did the unthinkable . . . I tentatively climbed up another rung of the ladder. I did pause a moment to reflect on my situation: There I am, standing on the top rung of a six foot ladder, alone on the fourth floor of a brownstone home where, if something should happen to me, no one would ever hear my shout thanks to the 18” thick brick and plaster walls. The nearest phone was one flight of stairs away . . . Hmm . . . Oh, bother, get on with it, I told myself. And so I did drill that hole exactly where it needed to go. Floods of relief. But just as I was pulling the drill out of the hole . . . I lost my balance.
It was one of those dreadful moments where time actually stood still. I thought to myself, you are now going to fall off the top of this ladder head first down on to a hardwood floor. And I did. In excruciatingly slow motion, I began an impressive swan dive in one direction while the ladder careened the other way. My heart pounded with the rush of adrenaline as the drill clattered to the ground. If I survived this, I wondered what kind of example I was setting for my children. They’ll never listen to me again, knowing what a stupid fool I am! Slowly, ever so slowly, I headed down down down. My life flashed before my eyes. Every dim-witted thing I’d ever done, anyway. One long chain of acts of stupidity all leading up to This. And then . . . a miracle occurred! I did not land on my head after all! Somehow on the way down my flailing arms caught the side of a bookcase, and sent a tower of books crashing to the floor. I was saved by Dr. Seuss! A pile of hardcover children’s books is hardly a soft landing, but it broke my fall and I ended up in a heap on the floor with nary a scratch.
There are several lessons I learned from this experience. Chiefly, NEVER stand on the top rung of a ladder. EVER. (Why do they even put a rung on the top of a ladder, anyway? Fools like me don’t need the temptation!) Never attempt any sort of curtain hanging, window hardware hanging, picture hanging or bird feeder hanging when you are home alone. In fact, never do any of these projects on your own to begin with! And while we’re at it, never listen to just one clerk at the hardware store; if it is a tricky job, get a second opinion. And always keep a spare tube of epoxy in your tool kit!
Now, back to that ceiling register . . . I think I’ll just see if I can find an assistant!
###
Keeping House
(posted 6/7/11)
Sometimes I get to the end of the day and I wonder where the time went. Did I accomplish anything at all? On these days, it seems I spend my time walking in circles, jumping from thing to thing forgetting where I’m going or what I had initially set out to do. Do you ever walk into a room and suddenly forget why you went there? I have heard that this is a symptom of menopause, but I don’t know. I’ve had this problem for years!
It has been one of those kind of days. Earlier this morning, I was trying to finish the flexible spending medical reimbursement form which required me to make copies of all the medical bills we’ve paid in the past six months. This took quite a while sitting on the floor next to the copier, because Henry blew out his knee in February and has had the Full Program of doctor visits, drugs, MRI scans, X-rays, outpatient surgery, physical therapy, more drugs, and more physical therapy. The stack of receipts is alarming. And this is in addition to all the insurance paperwork. Why hasn’t someone invented a more efficient way to do this? Just how many trees have we destroyed copying copies of our statements and invoices? I try not to get too incensed at the sorry state of the medical delivery system in America, and stick to the mind-numbing task at hand. I get through everything: the pale and nearly illegible cash register receipts and the big, fat, multi-paged invoices. Then this mountain of copied medical records has to go in a large manila envelope and get mailed to some processing center in Ohio.
So, I go down to the basement to fetch an envelope from our stash of stationery supplies, which is next to the laundry room. Oh and while I’m at it, I’ll just put another load of wash in the machine. So that last load has to go in the dryer. And of course the load in the dryer has to come out and get folded. Beach towels, thankfully. It is done in a jiffy and I’ll just put them back on the porch, folded and ready to go again. But on the way to the back door, I walk right past a project I started last week and never finished – mounting the air duct damper back up on the ceiling. The plaster repair is dry now and all the tools are right there where I left them and it shouldn’t take but a few minutes to set the thing back in place.
Up on a chair now. I hammered the new anchors in to the ceiling, oops! , sending drywall dust showering down like snow flurries. I made a mental note to find our protective goggles, which are somewhere in the garage. No sooner had I begun to set the screws into the anchors when the phone rang. When you are working upside down, covered in drywall dust I might add, you can’t just let go of what you are holding on to in order to run and pick up the phone. It all has to be disassembled and set down gently. OK, I did this and jumped off the chair and got to the phone just in time. It was Henry, good boy, letting me know his whereabouts. That worry taken care of, I pick up the duct, the screws and the screwdriver and start again. Another call, dang it! I almost didn’t go for it, because I have had such a difficult time with these screws, and I sure wasn’t going to risk stripping the anchors for the sake of some telemarketer wanting to chat about an extended warranty for my vacuum. I am glad I did pick up the phone, though, because it was Peter calling from Jakarta in one of his few moments of free time.
Back up on the chair for the third time, and vowing not to stop for any reason other than an act of God. This is it. If the screws fail, I’m going to break down and call a handyman. But it works!! The screws go in, the duct stays up! It just needs a touch of caulk to finish it up nicely, and so I make another mental note to stop at Lowe’s to get some next time I’m up that way. The hard part is done. Yay! I can now put away all the tools and what-not, clean up the work zone and turn it back in to the family room.
And then I’ll run a quick vacuum to remove all the debris. While I’m at it, I might as well vacuum the whole room. When was the last time I vacuumed down here? Judging by the number of dead bugs all dried out and belly up, it has been A While. I can’t do a proper job with all the clutter, of course, so I’ll just put away the pile of stuff that never quite made it to the storage room; and the ironing that I just can’t seem to find time to do. I better vacuum the whole basement while I’m at it. Lord knows when I’ll get around to do it again! It is such a satisfying feeling to empty that dirt canister and see all the crud that comes out.
All that remains now is to take Katie’s desk drawer back up to the desk (don’t ask!) and I’ll be done! I pass by the study on the way to Katie's room. Why is there an empty coffee cup on the floor? Next to the copier. Next to that very large stack of copied medical bills... I’ll just run downstairs and get an envelope…
###
Following Instructions
(posted 5/28/11)
(posted 5/28/11)
I sometimes wonder about the intelligence of product design folks who write cryptic or unintelligible instructions for their products. Being a somewhat handy person, I often buy Do It Yourself kits with “Some Assembly Required” or “Easy to Follow Instructions”. You’d think I’d learn by now never to trust phrases like that, and if there is any sort of assembly time indicated, I should at least double it. But I am a sucker for a quick fix, and I have a track record to prove it.
There was the time I decided to try to pickle the pine paneling in our basement. When we bought the house, it came with perfectly dreadful knotty pine paneling in the basement, and when we renovated it we tried to think of a creative way to dress up those planks of paneling so they didn’t look so, well, 1966. Pickling sounded fun and not too difficult, according to the directions on the pickling kit. What they don’t tell you, conveniently, is that you need biceps the size of George Foreman’s and the stamina of a long distance runner in order to scrape every square inch of the wood properly.
There’s the initial step where you apply some toxic goop and after a while scrape it off, along with the old stain, in theory. Then you apply another nasty smelling liquid, which bleaches the wood to some degree. Though if you haven’t applied enough elbow grease in step one, you won’t get any effect from step two. And then you get to scrape that off, as well. Thankfully I was smart enough to try out the procedure first on a spare plank of pine paneling in the garage. After spending several hours on this one plank, I came to the realization that if I wanted the basement completed sometime this century, we’d have to go with another knotty pine paneling solution.
And don’t you love those Easy- to-Assemble shelving units? We needed something inexpensive yet functional for corralling all of the shoes and boots that collect in the garage at the kitchen door. I bought a very simple, collapsible shelving unit kit that measured about three feet by three feet. Since the box proclaimed “Pre-drilled Holes!” and “No tools needed!”, it sounded like a quickie project to me. In fact, the directions were pictures. How hard could that be to follow pictures? I soon found out. What they didn’t tell me was which screw was meant for which hole. Turns out there were two sizes of screws, and I got half way through the assembly before I noticed this. Back I went to picture number one.
They didn’t give any advice either about how to actually hold the sides and back pieces together while you quickly get those screws in place. Short of having three arms, I just didn’t see how this could be accomplished. The picture, naturally, showed the pieces levitating into place. Sadly, I haven’t achieved that stage of enlightenment where I can use The Force to make things stay put while I work on them, and so I spent the better part of an hour precariously balancing the three pieces of wood with my legs, one arm and a chin while I single-handedly, and after much trial and error, got the screws in the proper holes. I prayed during this time that no one would suddenly appear in the garage and catch me there in that odd position. If I were the product designer, I would have conveniently left out this picture, too.
Just today I found what I think are the most cryptic instructions I’ve ever read. I finally got around to putting up a wallpaper border in our laundry room. Back when we did the basement renovation and put in the laundry room, I bought a roll of wallpaper border to cheer the place up, as the room had only the slimmest suggestion of daylight from a tiny window well. That roll of border paper has sat on the shelf for two years, and for some reason today I decided to finally stick it up on the wall. Easy enough. There were three steps, printed in microscopic type on the label of the roll. (I had to get my daughter to read it, it was that tiny.)
Step 1. Soak cold water 15 sec., paste side out.
I dutifully filled a bucked of water and then stopped dead in my tracks. Soak what, exactly? How big of a piece should I do at a time? What do they mean by paste side out? I’d need a container the size of a watering trough if they meant I was supposed to lay it flat with the glue side up. I decided to cut a piece eight feet long, the length of one wall I was covering. I loosely rolled this piece, paste side out, and plunked it in the water.
Step 2. Fold strip paste to paste, set aside for 2 mins.
This didn’t sound too hard. Until I tried it. There must be a trick to manhandling slippery, flippy floppy wallpaper, but my directions did not reveal it. Soon my eight foot long strip of paper was doubled over the wrong way, and trying hard to affix itself to the dryer, much to my chagrin. Perhaps I should have gone with a four foot piece for starters. It took me the better part of two minutes to undo this mess, and so then I wondered, is it two minutes from the second you take it out of the water or two minutes once you get the thing stuck to itself properly? I decided to split the difference, and set it aside for one minute while I wiped wallpaper paste off the dryer.
Step 3. Hang and wash clean.
Oh now that sounds encouraging. Just hang it right up and off you go. I climbed on top of the dryer, paper in hand, and began to unfold it. The darn thing smacked itself to the dryer again, but I persevered. Of course the first think I encountered was the length issue again. How the heck do you get eight feet of wallpaper border up on the wall all at the same time? Now I am 5’ 8” and I have an arm span of nearly six feet. So with my left hand holding the left edge in place, I cleverly reached for a hanger with my right to give me some extra extension so I could get the border up in one go. What I didn’t think through was that moment when you are holding the wallpaper up with both arms outstretched and the very middle buckles and sighs away from the wall. Necessity being the mother of invention, I discovered I could use my head, literally, to push it back on the wall. Only trouble with this maneuver was that now I had wallpaper glue in my hair. I had much larger things to contend with, however, as I watched the whole piece unglue itself in one quick unzip. Several tries later (my head now appearing to be undergoing some radical color treatment), I finally got the border where it belongs.
I smoothed out the buckled areas, noticing as I did this that excess paste was accumulating on the wall below the border. I guess this is what was supposed to be washed clean (And here I thought they were referring to my hair!) So I got a sponge and started to scrub. Who knows if I got it all off. The wall was too wet to tell if there was any glue residue left up there. I cleaned up as best I could and called it a day. Tomorrow when I go down to check the border, I give it equal odds that it will either a) look just right, or b) be stuck to the dryer. Easy as 1 – 2 – 3 !
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