I was riding the redline loop from Tenleytown to Glenmont, when, on a whim, or compelled by guilt, I started writing down a list of pending tasks at home. After several minutes of writing, I looked down the list. Thirty-three items!
These were not pie-in-the-sky bucket list items like bathroom remodeling or planning a trip to Machu Picchu. These were immediate tasks with real costs and consequences for neglecting them, least of which is frequent reminders from my wife. Like replacing the shattered front glass door or sealing the cracked driveway.
Installing a much needed security system has been a long pending demand, which got added urgency after a thief visited several neighbors through unlocked windows and walked away with expensive consumer electronics. The chap was caught and arraigned, whereupon his indulgent parents posted bail and got him out. He promptly returned like a homing pigeon and picked up where he had left off. The word is that they finally nailed him behind bars but that did little to absolve me of the need to do the market research, find the best vendor, and get the security system setup.
In the kitchen, my wife spotted a black discoloration on the ceiling, about the size of a quarter. I drew up a stool to take a closer look and gently ran my finger over it. The ceiling drywall gave in and I was staring at a gaping hole. The discoloration was mold. As I stood tapping my head to figure out why, someone flushed the upstairs bathroom. Before I could say “wait a minute,” water dripped down from the hole above on to my head. Turns out the sealant around the 20-year old toilet had worn out and water was leaking on to the drywall below. Two items added to the list just like that: replacing the toilet and plugging the hole in the ceiling.
The powder room sink wasn’t draining properly. In a bid to repair it, I removed the stopper and poked the drain with a brush to remove the accumulated detritus. The bottom of the drain pipe gave away at the j-bend, putting the sink out of commission. Item #27 added to the list.
Now, I do understand. It is easy to dispatch items off the list—provided you are comfortable with the idea of parting with enormous amounts of money. Call a contractor, commission the job, and sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight—of cash flying out of the coffers. But you see, somehow, that is not in my nature. Parting with money is hard, especially for something that I believe I could do myself. And that’s where the tyranny starts, the birth of the do-it-yourself list.
A month after the upstairs toilet leak was detected, and many I-will-get-to-it-’s later, my wife lost patience.
“If you are not going to fix it, I am going to call Wayne,” she said.
“Who’s Wayne?”
“He’s a handyman doing some remodeling work for Anita.”
“He will charge a lot. And what makes you think he will do a better job than me?” I protested.
“At least the job will be done and that’s what money is for,” came the firm reply.
I looked at the 24 items listed above toilet repair. “OK, go ahead and get an estimate from this Wayne. Meantime, I will do some research online and find out the best toilet brand ” I said.
“Nothing doing. I am going to ask him to fix it and I will ask him to pick up a toilet from the Home Depot.”
I had run out of leverage. The only option was to hope this Wayne will take his time to show up. I will do the research and get the best toilet in the meantime—ha!
While oppressed by the 24 pending items, I did some work and ordered a toilet online, a sleek one-piece Toto with a European profile but American size. It came encased in sprayed and peanut styrofoam, making it a job in itself to unpack it. When Wayne came, he lugged it upstairs with my help, removed the old toilet, and put the new one in with the included wax seal. As I stood watching and thinking, “Is this it?” he got up and said,
“That’ll be $150!”
Whoosh … ka-ching! I told you so.
But my wife wasn’t concerned. Toto or not, we had a working toilet.
“Does that include the ceiling repair? I asked Wayne.
“No, that’s a separate charge,” came the answer. I wasn’t too curious to find out.Instead, I whipped out a box cutter, cut the edges of the hole into shape, and plugged it with a fresh piece of drywall, masking tape, and joint compound.
Yet, we weren’t done with Wayne.
On a beautiful Summer morning, I was out in the yard trimming weeds on our brick walkway with my Hitachi gas trimmer. I finished the walkway to the front door and moved to the path leading to our deck. Suddenly, there was a loud scream from inside the house. The sliding door to the deck opened and my wife came running out.
“What happened to our front door?” she yelled above the whir of the trimmer.
I shut off the trimmer and rested it on the deck rails. “Let me take look,” I said walking back toward the front of the house. I stared at the door in horror. The right panel of the double-paneled glass door was completely cracked with jagged lines radiating away from a point of impact.
“How did this happen?” I asked as my wife opened the other door.
“Don’t know. I heard a loud thud and came looking and this is what I found,” she said.
“Hmmm … What could have hit the door? May be a bird flew into it,” I said, remembering a TV commercial for the Glass Plus cleaner.
It would be a while before we solved the mystery, but in the meantime, item #28 joined the list.
I quickly did some research and found that replacing the entire door would be an expensive affair. And there was no obvious DIY way to fix the thing without additional learning. This was no low-hanging fruit.
So, I did the next best thing. I put it off. While the glass had cracked, it still held together. The panel was dual-pane and the inside pane was intact; putting off was easy.
Months went by while I dithered, danced around, and looked the other way. Then one day I noticed pieces of glass strewn all over the front yard. I looked up at the door. The cracked pane was gone.
“Did you call Wayne?” I asked my wife.
“Yup. Winter is here and the door needs to be fixed. He took measurements and has ordered a new panel. He will finish the job next week.”
I took a deep breath. “That’s gonna cost lot of money.”
“That’s what money is for,” she averred.
Wayne did fix it next week, but he made a mess of the job, just as he had done with the toilet. He ordered a half-inch panel to replace the inch-thick original. He bought a mismatched wooden molding. And he left the molding unpainted, demurring “That’s a separate charge.” I paid up and don’t care to put the figure in print for the pain it causes.
The next Spring rolled around and I was back in my yard on a beautiful saturday morning with the soaring poplar canopies swaying in a gentle breeze. I took out my trimmer and got to work on the walkway. I turned toward the front door as the trimmer whirling at a furious 8,000 RPM shredded the weeds that were sprouting between the red bricks.
I was too caught up in the power play to notice the potential for collateral damage. The trimmer caught a pebble lodged between the bricks and sent it flying across the walkway. In a split second it hit the left panel of the glass door. There was a loud thud, followed by brief silence and then the sound of glass cracking as jagged lines criss-crossed the pane in all directions. Holy smokes! It was the exact replica of what had happened to the right panel a year before. Mystery solved, perpetrator caught, but item #28 back on the list.
Needless to say, I didn’t engage Wayne this time. Instead, I took measurements, ordered a new panel—the correct one-inch size, bought matching molding, and installed the door myself. Take that, Jack. But the dirty secret is that it took 6 months, from the time of the repeat offense to the installation and painting.
I have struck other items off the list: replacing a virus infected PC, buying a mattress for my son (if you think that’s easy, you have been conned), installing a new cap for our well. Trouble is, the damn list keeps growing faster than I can strike things off it. It is as if striking one spawns progenies like the frightening scene from an alien horror movie.
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Take item # 12, the pickup truck. After an excruciating 4-year procrastination, I recently bought a truck (you can read the prequel in my Tales from PIGS Time). No sooner had the truck arrived though, other to-dos cropped up.Now that I had a truck, it was time to buy the long-wished for canoe (for the flashback, see my Pocomoke Pulivaal). To haul the canoe, I needed racks, and to attach the racks, I needed to install a tow hitch on the truck. I needed life jackets and I needed hooks and ropes to hang the canoe under the deck.
So I am back staring at the tyrannical list. I take the pen and start listing pending items. It is way past 33.
Despite my inability to tame it, I love my list. It gives a semblance of organization to the chaotic modern life and I like looking at the long list of items I have struck off over the years. Now if you'll excuse me I have to go canoeing. Item #29 can wait. See you up the river.
