My Dog is Chelsea

Here’s the thing about “easy three-step” processes that makes me start screaming expletives while I’m installing a showerhead: very few things actually ever really ARE three steps.

Take toast-making, for instance. Here’s the easy three-step version:

1. Take out a piece of bread.
2. Put in toaster.
3. Remove from toaster.

Easy, yes. But does it make excellent toast? Quite the contrary. Here’s what you really need to do:

1. Take out a piece of bread. Or, if you have a loaf, slice off a toaster-sized slice.
2. Insert into toaster slot.
3. Set toaster to desired toast level and press down the button.
4. Remember to keep an eye on your toast. Overcooked toast is a buzzkill.
5. When the toast pops up, remove carefully from the toaster. DO NOT use a fork or you might die.
6. Slice thin pats of butter and use a butter knife to liberally apply butter to toast (both sides if you really want a good piece of toast). OPTIONAL: Apply jelly to one side only.
7. Serve.

Seven steps instead of three, but sometimes you just need a little extra detail to fill in the blanks.

The whole theory is that three steps sounds a lot more manageable than seven. Which may be helpful for people trying to pick out a detachable showerhead at Lowe’s, where you’re confronted by about 37 different varieties of what seems like the exact same product. “Three-step installation? Sounds great! I’ll buy it!”

Easy, peasy — right? First you remove your old shower head (pre-step 1), then you follow the easy-three step process for affixing your new one, and then you turn on the water (post-step 3). Voila! you’ve got a glorious shower in three-ish steps.

Or not. First, what the heck are you supposed to do with those little disc-screen thingies that appear to be intended as some sort of water filter? The instructions do not mention them at all. Are they optional? Or, if you do not use them, will you suffer from an inferior shower?

Then, there’s that tape-like stuff that you’re supposed to wrap around the threads of the thing your screwing in (step 2). The instructions do not address what you should do when the tape gets all twisted up and becomes more of a string of dental floss than a piece of tape. Luckily, the kind man at Lowe’s had the foresight to sell you an extra roll and you use that.

Now your showerhead is screwed in, the hose is secure and there’s a tape-like product kinda-sorta wedged in at all connection points. Do the instructions tell you to get a pair of pliers and tighten the connections? No, of course not, for that would add another step. Instead, you’re done! Good work! You turn on the water to give your new showerhead a test-a-roo.

BAM! Water barrels out through the joints, spraying not only the bathroom walls and ceiling but also your proud little face. Expletives fly; the dog, who has been watching the whole installation process carefully, bolts; you scramble to shut off the water.

Your bathroom is now soaked AND you need to redo steps two and three.

In the end, three steps turned into twelve (thirteen if you count washing the towels you used to soak up the water) when it could’ve been only seven. Wouldn’t you rather be supplied more information than you need than not enough?

Yeah, me too.

________

*Not really.

I’m not very good at fixing things.

This inability has brought me to tears on more than one occasion. Nothing is more frustrating than reading “THREE EASY STEPS!” on the package of your new Venetian blinds and then failing to  progress beyond step one. To my credit, installing blinds actually takes about eight steps that have been condensed into three for the purpose of making it sound easier than it is, with several pertinent details omitted (like what to do when the plaster chips away and the blinds fall down).

But mostly, I just don’t know what the hell I’m doing.

My father was the fix-it man around my house when I was a kid. An engineer by training, he had a knack for taking 2×4s and assembling them into highly useful objects. He built the deck, the staircase railing, the wheelchair ramp, my brother’s bed and a bookshelf. He even built a boardwalk out back so that we could walk down to the creek — not to mention that he dug out the creek to create a fork that formed a mini island to which he built a bridge. And, of course, none of his work looked homemade. Like everything else my father endeavored (or so it seemed to my young mind), his woodworking was graced with both perfectionism and professionalism.

He inherited his handiness from his father, who made, among many other things, a copper pot rack and several stained-glass lampshades. But unlike my father, I never really had the chance to learn many DIY skills from my dad. By the time he passed away, he had taught me the basics: how to sand wood, how to hammer a nail and how to know when to use a Phillip’s head or a flathead screwdriver. But you can’t very well teach a nine-year-old everything she will need to know when she becomes a homeowner later in life. At that age, I was far more interested in making mud pies out of the sawdust that spewed from his table saw than I was in learning how to hang Venetian blinds or patch holes in lathe and plaster.

So now I’m learning all of these things without his help. Tears and profanities are often involved, but I’m slowly making progress. The lessons I’ve learned to date:

• Silicone dries faster than you might think. Do not wait until you’ve applied it to the entire wall of bath tiles before you smooth it out.
• Many products you might buy for your house contain instructions and hardware for mounting onto drywall. If your walls are made of lathe and plaster, you may need additional hardware and you definitely will need a drill. Drywall anchors don’t exactly push their way through wood.
• A clogged garbage disposal does not require the help of a plumber. All you need is a really big Allen wrench. Insert it into the hole on the underside of the disposal and turn. (There — I saved you $75.)
• On a similar note, if your dishwasher starts to back up, you also probably do not need the help of a plumber. Instead, use a fitting to secure the drainage tube to the top of the underside of your counter top. (Another $75 —  plus another $200 if you first make the mistake of a calling a bad plumber who punches a bunch of holes in your walls and yet doesn’t fix the problem.)
• It’s probably best to hang your blinds from the window frame rather than the lathe and plaster. They’re just too damn heavy.
• Read all supplied instructions before beginning your project. (By the way, this also applies to recipes. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve found myself halfway through making dinner only to read, “Place bowl in the refrigerator for 24 hours.” FML.)
• When in doubt, call a handy friend.

Next lesson on the docket:

• Patching: AKA repairing the damage you’ve caused to your walls thanks to your failure to hang blinds.

I noticed today that a coworker of mine has really excellent all-caps handwriting.

That made me think of my father, who must’ve taken a drafting class at some point in his life. He always wrote in all caps, using only the most pristine and perfectly-angled letters. Maybe he was an architect in a previous life.

Last summer, my mother gave me all of her old spice jars, many of which still have labels that were handwritten, in all caps, by my father. He was very meticulous about spice labeling:

• CINNAMON (GROUND)
• CINNAMON STICKS
• CINNAMON SUGAR
• PEPPERCORNS (SZECHUAN)
• PEPPERCORNS (GREEN)
• PEPPERCORNS (BLACK)
• NUTMEG (WHOLE)
• NUTMEG (GROUND)
• CUMIN (GROUND)
• CUMIN SEED

Etc. He built a special rack to create a double-decker spice drawer for easy access to spices underneath, and as you can see from the small sample above, there were a lot of spices underneath (probably about 50 or 60 jars in all). Our kitchen was practically a warehouse for the British East India Company.

Those spice labels are some of the few remaining examples of his handwriting (and also of his detail-driven organizational skills — which I did not manage to inherit, unfortunately). I already have my own spice rack, so think I’m going to use the jars to save seeds for next year’s garden. I’m sure my father would approve of that — I’ll just need to make sure I store them in an appropriately organized way.

That is all. It just seemed like a good afternoon for a memory.

I have not forgotten. I’ve just had lunch meetings every day this week. Blogging to resume shortly.

No, your eyes are not deceiving you! This indeed my second blog post IN LESS THAN 24 HOURS.

What’s with the flurry of activity, you ask? Is MDIC experiencing a non-busy period of her life? Au contraire, my friends. Between work, ultimate frisbee and putting food on the table and my head on the pillow, I have nary a moment to blog.

Well, you wonder, does she have something incredibly important or timely to tell us? Nay, I tell you. Nothing more relevant than my already meaningless drivel I post on Facebook and Twitter.

So then, why, for the love of all things holy, is MDIC wasting her time updating her blog (she still has a blog?!)?

Because I am. Because it’s summer, and it’s my personal challenge again this summer to squeeze in a post or three a week — whether it’s over my lunch break or before bedtime, or heck, if by some miracle I wake up early enough for a leisurely post in the AM.

And why should you care about what I have to say? Well, you probably won’t, and that’s OK with me. Thing is, I spend every moment of my work life writing for someone else – a client, a target audience, a colleague. All that matters in this line of business is whether or not your message resonates with your audience. Which is great for marketing, but not for my personal creativity. What I want: a place where I can write what I want to write, without regard for my readers’ expectations. Selfish? Perhaps. But sometimes writing for yourself — because you need to, or just want to — is the only way to nourish that part of your writing ability that likes to have a little fun.

So follow along if you like — but I won’t be mad if you don’t. Lord knows there’s already enough useless I-ate-broccoli-for-dinner updates on these great webs of intertubes.