The Fabled PC, my bride of more than a third-of-a-century past, recently
stumbled across some old letters she had written to her mother early
in our marriage. Cussing daintily and rubbing her bumped knee,
she first asked why I had laid the bundle of letters in the dimly
lit hallway right where she would be sure to fall over them.
"Oh,
those?" I observed brightly, glancing down nervously from my shaky
perch on the stepladder, "They were in the way, laying over the junction
box in the attic. I just kind of tossed them aside... musta
fell through the hole."
She looked past me to the square thing
in the hallway ceiling.
"But the hole to the attic is closed--how
could they fall out?"
"Ahh, uh..."
She nailed me with about
a number six withering glance. She knows that any time that
I find myself beginning a statement with "Ahh, uh..." -- I'm in trouble
again.
"What!"
PC can make that word speak volumes. She laid a cold, hard eye on me (which feels just as disgusting as
it sounds), and waited.
"...The new hole. It's in the bedroom. Where my foot slipped when I was in the attic. Working on the
junction box." I added lamely.
But she was gone; past me and
my rickety perch, and into the bedroom.
"AARRRGH!"
I got
her calmed down by encouraging her to read the old letters. The very first one was a gushing account of how her brilliant husband
had successfully opened a stuck window in the $69-a month, furnished
apartment we were renting in Abilene, Texas. I remember the
achievement fondly: we had cool breezes in our bedroom from
that time on. Even, it turned out, during the following winter. I never did figure out how to get it closed again. With the
supreme flexibility of youth, we thought the poncho taped over the
opening looked chic.
She was reading the old letters in the bedroom, as the light was better
there. The hallway was still pretty dim, considering the two
lights in it were still both out. That was why I had been trying
to get into the junction box... why they make those things so difficult
to open I will never understand--you'd think they were trying to keep
people from fixing what had to be wiring errors.
"Look, Walt,
here's the letter I wrote Mom when you got shocked when you were fixing
the toaster."
"Really? Hey, I remember that! I may
have gotten a little sting, but the toaster never worked better, did
it?" I felt it was time to get a few points in, before she took
a really good look at the ceiling over the bed.
"Well, ye-es...
but after that, we always had to stand over it to pop the toast out
before it got really blackened--and we could never have any other
appliance on at the same time."
"A mere formality."
"And
you were in the hospital four days."
"I could have gone home
in two. Ha! And I think I've got the hall lights fixed."
PC
smiled happily, patted my manly cheek, then walked into the hallway
and flicked the switch.
We got the fire out in pretty short order,
but the fire extinguisher was one of those white-powder things that
really make a mess. A quick trip to the Superduper Hardware
Emporium got me the replacement for the fire extinguisher, a new replacement
switch, and some other goodies.
When I got back, she was just
finishing up a conversation with our doctor, and she was expressing
her sincere disappointment in him that he would not prescribe her
any Valium. She had obviously gotten that really good look at
the ceiling.
I figured that I ought to go about this handyman
stuff systematically. So I started at the first step, which
I will call Step 1. I got out the brand new trowel I'd just
purchased, and the plaster mix for the hole. As the hole was
directly over our waterbed, it was obvious that I would have to lean
a little on the stepladder to reach all of it. That turned out
not to be too difficult at all.
The hard part came when the ladder
went over, and the trowel harpooned the waterbed. The bag of
plaster mix got pretty thoroughly wet, and was clearly ruined. Fortunately, I could see that the rug might still be saved if I hosed
it quickly.
So I went to Step 1-minus.
Unfortunately, PC
came in while the hosing job was just being completed, and didn't
fully understand the logic of the whole situation right away.
While
she went off to the Superduper Hardware Emporium to rent a rug-cleaning
gadget to suck up all the water, and to make a side trip to the waterbed
place for a new waterbed mattress (when I started to repair the cut,
the comforter and sheets kind of got glued to the old one pretty well),
I decided to save a little time and let some common tradesman do a
few of the simpler tasks ahead of me.
There's a local fixit store
here in town, run by John H.--a really nice guy. Whenever I
have a problem or a job that just doesn't seem worth doing by myself,
I call him. I think he must really like me, because strangely,
his fancy boat is named after me.
He stood there surveying the
hallway and bedroom.
"What Step were you on when you called me?" John and I talk the same language.
"Step 4-minus." It is
important to be honest in these matters.
"Oh, my. This
is gonna be a tough one."
But John had things pretty much in
order by the time PC returned. I saw no reason to mention that
he had been here again, and kind of, well, let it be thought that
I had fixed everything up by myself.
I even gallantly volunteered
to do the rug-slurping job with the machine, but PC wouldn't let me
touch it. She's funny that way, sometimes, after I've been doing
handyman things around the house.
She looked up at the plaster
job drying neatly in the ceiling. Then she took a break from
slurping, and worked the switches in the hallway. The lights
went on and off. Both of them. Her eyebrows lifted.
"So...
what was wrong with the lights?"
"Bulbsburntout." I mumbled casually.
She
stiffened immediately.
"John was here, wasn't he!"
"Ahh,
uh..."
"My God! What did it cost this time?"
"Ahh,
uh..."
