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| The Battle of Lexington William Barnes Wollen (PD) |
'Tis an odd world we live in. For instance, the highlight of my Tuesday was getting a new garbage disposal installed. It was pricey but it was necessary. In other places, people were fighting and dying for things that we can't understand, not really anyway.
I can speak to the garbage disposal though, the rest I'll leave for another day.
I had examined candidate units at the local big box hardware store on Sunday and was leaning towards the company that made my old one. Why? Well, the old one lasted twenty years or so and we had very few problems with it. In fact, I can't remember any time we had problems with it until it simply ceased to function. (The Missus Herself did say that it acted up once or twice, nothing major though. May have popped a breaker when it was over-burdened, so to speak.)
Things wear out as time goes by, that old disposal had a better career than most.
I installed the earlier one, when I popped the doors open under the sink to see what I needed to do to replace this one, I was daunted almost immediately, and somewhat overwhelmed by memories.
Daunted because I knew that it would take me most of the day to install it myself. I also realize that I'm not as spry as I used to be, I couldn't picture myself down on the floor, under the sink, muscling stuff around and trying to keep the work area well lit.
As to the memories, my cats used to "help" with work around the house, mostly supervisory in nature, but they took an interest. As I get older I miss them more and more. Some might say, "Get another," but I can't, not at this juncture. Replacing beings you loved with a certain intensity is not easy. Our last two cats were with us for a very long time. I miss them, they were, in a word, irreplaceable.
I felt better when the two guys showed up to install the new one. First: it was two guys, second: they had the right tools for the job, and third: the new unit had some quirks that the old one didn't. It was different enough that I would have struggled mightily to refrain from unleashing my vocabulary of words not fit for polite company. That vocabulary crosses a number of languages as well. None of which The Missus Herself cares to hear spoken around Chez Sarge.
A question popped into my mind while watching the plumbers do their thing (all told it took them less than an hour from start to finish) - why do United States companies seem to redesign everything periodically? Usually not because of "hey, here's something better" but more likely "hey, we can charge more for this!" Irks me no end it does. (Looking at you Apple and your verdammte power plugs.)
In Germany things weren't constantly being redesigned, of course it's Germany so things are pretty over-engineered to begin with. For instance, the outside door handle on my house in Germany broke. Thinking I could perhaps fix it, I opened it up. Nope, a part inside had actually worn down and snapped from usage over the years.
Thinking that finding the same door handle would be difficult, a neighbor assured me, "Just go to the Mobau¹ and buy one, I bet that design hasn't changed in fifty years. Sure enough, I went there, showed one of the guys the part, he took me to where those were and BINGO! I had a replacement door handle which installed perfectly.
We kinda don't do that here. One of the "mottos" that one of my old employers used to tout was "relentless improvement," I used to call it "relentless tinkering." No one there had ever heard of the timeworn phrase, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
Sigh.
Anyhoo, think I'll watch the President tonight (last night as you read this), no doubt I'll get pissed off/bored/annoyed/frustrated within the first few minutes and go do something else, happens every year.
As to the opening painting, not sure why I chose that one, probably because it's tax season. Or am I too early putting up my Form 1040 decorations? I dunno, it's just that there is much in the world to be aggravated by, seeing someone stand up for themselves is always good.
Or maybe I'm just a curmudgeon, griping about anything and everything. Perhaps I'll go yell at the clouds on Wednesday.
Ciao.
¹ I call it the German Home Depot, very similar in concept.
Sarge, I have reached the point where I tend to have the professionals do things. Tends to save me money in the long run.
ReplyDeleteI view it as supporting the economy. (That's my excuse and I'm sticking with it.)
Deleteif we didn't tinker, we'd still be uncertain whether the moon was made of Sage Derby or Schabziger.
ReplyDeleteThat wasn't the point of my offering, but there is truth in your words.
Delete"Things wear out as time goes by," and "I'm not as spry as I used to be," Sort of sums up the Human Condition. No matter how much our emotional selves deny it. The joke "My brain says I'm 25, my humor says I'm 12, my body just glares at them" holds a lot of truth. I'm feeling all the stupid things I did when I was immortal and unbreakable between the ages of 15 and 35, and the big aches I can tell you what I did to earn them.
ReplyDeleteOne place I worked the Big Boss was constantly changing things just for the sake of changing things and because he was an anal sphincter. One day in the maintenance shop I wrote on the white board "If it works, change it." Didn't sit well.
Boron, there;s a difference between "tinkering" when you are limber and pain free enough to be a contortionist and "tinkering" when you have to stop and think about how you are going to stand up from a chair, much less the ground.
Again, my point was mindless idiots changing things just because they can and calling it progress. I saw a LOT of that in the USAF. My most recent employer tried to do that but common sense prevailed. Hopefully it still does.
DeleteChange for the sake of change is NOT always a good thing Sarge, smart move to hire the expertise to do the job that might have left the air around Chez Sarge a bit .....ah....blue.......:)
ReplyDeleteNot to mention the number of trips to Home Depot which were avoided.
DeleteProgress is change, but change is not progress
DeleteBingo!
DeleteFunny how places like under the sink or under the car get harder to to get to as the years go by...
ReplyDeleteAnd how much further it is to stand up.
Delete@ Joe
DeleteI've gotten to the point where I always (again: that's always) put a stepstool ladder real handy when I have to get down on the floor (and the telephone)
Rob - Yes, exactly!
DeleteJoe - The distance increases yearly.
Deleteboron - Not a bad idea!
DeleteYelling at the clouds is fine. Should they talk back, however, seek a professional opinion.
ReplyDeleteSometimes they do yell back, it's called thunder. When that happens I concede the contest and go back inside.
Delete"That vocabulary crosses a number of languages as well. None of which The Missus Herself cares to hear spoken around Chez Sarge".
ReplyDeleteMy father had a gift for learning languages (which I didn't inherit) including some dialect spoken in the Assam area of India. He also had a temper and would use all of his "words" if sufficiently provoked. Bystanders were often amazed.
It's good to have an extensive repertoire.
DeleteAh, undersink doom. Glad to not have to do that anymore, mostly.
ReplyDeleteAs to the President's Address, it was excellent. So good they even tossed a Dem congresscritter out for being a jackass. One visitor even got his West Point appointment announced by Trump, which was very cool. Lots of good goodness, very few faceplants.
Undersink doom, yup. Glad I paid someone to do it.
DeleteThe Address, I watched the whole thing. Enjoyed it, all of it.
I still do the mechanical stuff, but draw the line at electrical. Electricity if PFM, and I will let the magicians play with wires.
ReplyDeleteYour painting is a good reminder of how we began our independence, just a few weeks short of 250 years ago. Our origins should be the touchstone for our past and future.
JB
Electrical scares me, I used to work with it every day. But am done with that.
DeleteThe Origin Story should be known by every American and part of every citizenship test.
If there is any way possible, install some lighting under the sink. Our dishwasher plugs into an outlet, so I added a LED fixture. Yes - most of the times its not a pretty sight in there ...but... yes - I CAN find things! LOL
ReplyDeleteNot a bad idea. I'm starting to want lights everywhere.
DeleteI've done a little bit of my own home maintenance, but I often feel I'm underqualified/undertooled. Somebody could make some money running a class on how to fix home stuff, lending out the special tools if necessary. I guess YouTube is a great source, but practicing on broken stuff before yours breaks would be the key to that class.
ReplyDeleteI can figure almost anything out, but undertooled is the key thing. During the many bathroom renovations over the past ten years a number of my tools went AWOL when we were rearranging things. I suspect most of them are in the basement.
DeleteCleaning up the basement is this summer's planned project. I hope to find my tools at that time.