Fix-It

 

Between the two of us, my husband and I have a few skills that have helped us trot along in life. Give my husband a set of blueprints and he can build a house, a deck or just about anything made of wood. Give me a room full of twelve-year-olds and I can get them through a lesson on mitosis without loss of limb or life. We are both able to have semi-intelligent conversations about local and world events. We enjoy classic movies and an occasional musical or two. We like to read and are happy to share our opinions with anyone who asks (or doesn’t).

When it comes to all things mechanical, however, we are most assuredly the nitwit twins. My husband, of course, is a little more likely to take a crack at fixing whatever is broken. In defense of him, he is definitely more adept at hands on projects. As stated earlier, if there is wood involved, no problem. Moving metal parts are another story. I’ve watched him hover over an uncooperative engine with that “You’re not going to outsmart me” look in his eyes, only to be beaten by the sputtering and spattering of the world of combustion.

Recently, our furnace went out. Of course, it was Saturday morning when we noticed the drop in temperature. Of course, that means choosing between a very expensive service call or dressing up like Nanook of the North. Of course, we chose “fixing it” ourselves.

Over the years, we have developed a two pronged attack strategy for repairing things that are out of our league. Step one is to “Leave it set.” I knew this directive was coming my way so I went to the thermostat and turned off the furnace. By this time the house was quite frosty so I knew the loss of further heat was going to be minimal. After about a half hour, we turned the furnace back on, crossed our fingers, slurped another hot cup of coffee and waited for the magic to happen. The furnace made a groaning sound as it kicked in, but, alas, no warm air was projected from the registers.

Time for step two: Give it a good whack. I must confess that this step made me a bit nervous. Something about thumping away on an object that produces fire and heat seems risky to me. But desperate times call for desperate actions. I heard a few wallops on the furnace and lo and behold heat started flowing through the room. That’s the good news. The bad news is that as soon as the furnace reached the set room temperature, it shut off and did not start up again. So, you guessed it, we spent the weekend heating the house up to tropical proportions, letting it cool down, whacking the furnace and starting the cycle over again. It was a wear-your-layers kind of weekend.  And, yes, the furnace has been diagnosed as terminal so ka-ching, ka-ching, makes me want to keep whacking the beast.

All this makes me wonder if our fix-it strategy would work for me. I have many days when I’m quite out of sorts. So, if you see me sitting on my couch, thumping myself in the head, you’ll know I’m just striving for a re-set.