Now I know that all of my handyman/woman friends are going to say Pffftt and roll their eyes but this is huge for me.
I’ll start this off by mentioning that I am not handy at all and projects don’t often end well for me. For example, when Cheryl and I lived in a condo in Mississauga I tried to install a ceiling fan in the dining room. I went to the panel and turned the power off. I swear I did. And then went over to deal with the fan. Long story short, electricity found its way through somehow and I fried the wall switch, ceiling fan, and myself.
So when I’m at the gym this morning and Cheryl texts me that the front doorknob has come off again I felt that twinge of anxiety in my stomach and did a couple of extra sets on the weights to burn off a bit of steam before the fun starts.
I thought “it’s no big deal, I’ve fixed that before.” It’s just a matter of sliding the knob back onto the screws and tightening them. I’ve got this.
I put the knob on the screws and tightened them.
It didn’t work. The flappy button on the front of the door won’t go down. Great.
This is going into new territory. I’m going to take the front handle and flappy thing off. I carefully unscrewed it and took it off. Some pieces and a screw fell off into my hand. Oh oh. I figured that the pieces can go back and I’ll just put that screw back. Except I have to take the other screw off before I could put the pieces back.
When I loosened the other screw a spring thing and 2 pieces that go with it popped out!
Oh no. I didn’t see how and where they fit together!
Suddenly the flappy thing falls onto the floor and a little pin looking thing that goes with it!
That’s not fair! The flappy thing was okay until now!
I put them on the floor to worry about them later.
Inside the handle part there was a gear thing and other stuff. For some reason the springy thing and its other parts would not go back onto the gear thing. So I pried off the gear and the other things and put them on the floor with my fresh pile of springs and gears and stuff.
Every single part of this mechanism was now sitting on the floor disconnected to all of the other parts.
I can’t describe the feeling of despair that I felt now realizing that I have ruined the whole thing.
That’s why I call people to help me with these things.
“Maybe your father can help?” Cheryl said.
I sat on the floor with greasy hands and my pile of stuff and thought “No way! I’m going to try this again!”
I looked really hard at these things and started from the last piece that fell out of my hands onto the floor.
The gear thing and its parts went in pretty well.
I was happy.
Fortunately it appeared that nothing was broken. The pieces had just fell apart when a screw fell out.
The springy thing and its friends went in easily.
I tightened the handle and flappy part screws.
It looked good.
Now, I slowly slid the handle and flappy thing back into place.
It didn’t go nicely. It was wrong somehow.
I wiggled it and pushed and it eventually clicked into place. Nice.
When I tried to push the flappy thing it didn’t budge.
The springy thing and parts were in backwards. What the heck.
Anyway, a while later when I had switched the gear thing and everything the other way I tried again.
It worked!
The knob wasn’t on though and I still needed to tighten the handle.
When I turned the screw the whole thing started to pop out.
With Cheryl’s help I held the parts and she tightened the screws.
The final thing was putting that stupid knob on and tightening it.
I did that.
The moment of truth.
I pushed the flappy thing. It worked!
Now, I turned the knob very slowly and watched for parts to fly.
It worked!
“Holy crap!” I exclaimed.
Cheryl rushed over to see what was wrong.
I told her to push that and turn that.
She smiled when she realized that I had fixed it and gave me a hug.
A good way to start my day.
As long as I stay away from the front door and don’t try to fix anything else today. 🙂
Posts
