Here’s a heartwarming Valentine’s Day post…
I’m sure most men, and even some women, like to think of themselves as “handy” when it comes to dealing with their homes. After being married to Kyle for 10 years, I can honestly tell you that he’s really not that handy. He likes to think of himself that way, but deep down I know he realizes he’s not a handyman.
Over time we’ve come to the understanding that with most projects other than painting and landscaping that it’s probably just better for us to hire outside help. The main driver behind this realization came during the second summer we owned our house. Our side porch needed a major overhaul. It had settled over time. There was lots of rotting wood and it was just in general disrepair. Kyle and his father estimated that the two of them could get the necessary work done in a week and his dad offered to come stay with us to help out. Well, the week came and went, the porch was torn apart and the true amount of work that needed to be done was uncovered. His dad had other obligations, so he had to leave. Kyle and I worked on the porch every evening and weekend day for the entire summer, and most of the fall, to try and finish everything. Thankfully we had additional help from his family and my family on many of the weekends. We didn’t really know what the heck we were doing so every task took two or three times as long as it would a “handy” person.
Surprisingly to us, and many of our neighbors, we actually remained married after that summer. But it became clear that we never wanted to go through that again and we really needed to just hire people going forward.
Since that time we’ve unabashedly hired carpenters, plumbers and electricians.
But last week I realized that our hall bath showerhead needed replacing. It was leaking in various spots so the water pressure wasn’t great and our daughter’s incessant pulling on the detachable part during her baths was making the problem worse.
It’s just a detachable bath showerhead. Did we really need to hire someone to do the job? Or would Kyle be able to get it done on his own? I rallied the troops and made my request about a new showerhead known. I was assured that it wouldn’t be a problem, we had all of the tools we needed to get the job done, and it would just be a quick trip to the hardware store to get the showerhead. From there, the install would be quick and painless. So the experiment began…
Kyle and I both agreed that it would take a “handy” person about 10 minutes to detach the existing showerhead and install the new one. For Kyle’s purposes, I figured we should budget an hour. He didn’t reject this time allotment.
The showerhead was purchased and additional supplies were gathered from the basement. The removal of the existing showerhead was fairly easy. Kyle had done this before in other failed attempts at being “handy” to fix other issues with the tub. About only 3 of the 10 minutes had passed. He was optimistic. He may have bragged. The new showerhead was then installed, now we were at about the 10 minute mark. Then water was turned on to the spigot. That worked. The water was then turned on to the showerhead. No water came out. At this point I laughed because I saw where this is going, as always. We are incapable of even the easiest tasks!
Kyle fiddled with the showerhead settings and tried the water again. Still nothing. Then disassembly at various points to understand the last point where the water is flowing to. He removed the entire showerhead fixture and the water easily came from the showerhead-less fitting. Hmm. Must be something was wrong with the showerhead. Kyle messed with the various showerhead parts for about 15 more minutes before reattaching the old showerhead and giving up. Still no progress.
The next step was to go back to the store and buy a different showerhead. We assumed the first one was broken, so we might was well just try a different model. The next install went much better and was actually up and working in 11 minutes.
So, lesson learned here is that we’re still not handy, but “broken” parts don’t help our cause. I’m still wondering if it was really broken or if we’re just awful.
Do other folks find things like this happening to them? Or are we a special exception?