Get a Round Tuit

There is a television commercial that says, "We repair what your husband fixed."  I can relate to this statement because I am married to the original Mr. Fix-It.   When Mike and I first got married in 1975, he had me convinced that he was like my grandpa, my dad and my cousin Glen, and could fix anything.  I was used to their abilities to repair anything.  We never called a repair man when I was growing up.  The only professional I can remember being at my house was the two gentlemen who installed our furnace and a man who sprayed my grandparent's store for termites.  My dad was always working on something.  I remember one winter it got too cold working in his shed, so he brought a car motor in the house and worked on it on the kitchen table.  Daddy was always working on car, boat, or lawn mower motors.  He was born with no fingers on his left hand, but there wasn't anything he couldn't do. My grandpa, Tom Frith, was a handyman too.  He wasn't quiet as good as daddy, but he was good enough.  His speciality was in carpentry.  He thought a man couldn't get too many little out buildings.  Our go to person was my cousin, Glen Rigsby.  Glen could fix anything and he wouldn't quit until he did it right.  He was grandpa's nephew and daddy's best friend.  He had been working on his family farm with his father and uncle since he was a child.  He could drive when his feet didn't touch the gas pedal.  I imagine it was his idea to put a heavy board on the gas pedal and brake so he could get the job done.  He was a farmer who worked daylight until dark and still managed to find time to come and help us out.  I grew up with these three know-it-alls and a whole farming community of men just like them who ate their lunch everyday at my grandparent's little grocery store and talked about the tractor they had to fix before they could plow. 
 
Mike, actually, was a really good Mr. Fix- It until he decided that he didn't want to fix anything anymore.  At first he took a lot of time with his projects, seeming to care that they were done just right and that he finish what he started.  Then he started sliding into the "just make do" way of thinking.  That involved a lot of used parts, duct tape and unfinished work.  Once, when our clothes dryer quit, Mike said he'd find us one.  I rolled my eyes because I knew it meant I was going to be without a dryer for awhile .  He came home that Saturday afternoon with a used dryer.  So used that it still had a load of clothes inside.  Then there was the time that the washing machine bit the dust.  It was the only new appliance we had when we got married.  My grandmother bought it for us and it lasted longer that it should have. I really wanted a new washer, but Mike said he could fix it.  After a month went by and I was still going to my mom's, my friend's or the laundry mat and he hadn't fixed the dryer,  I was getting short tempered.  He had moved the washer onto the back porch where it looked real good.  I guess he got tired of hearing me so he found a pump that had been part of a car engine and installed it inside my auburn (I know you remember the colors auburn and avacado) washer and believe it or not it worked.  Five years ago, I got tired of always having someone else's stuff, so I bought a new washer and dryer all by myself.  I didn't tell Mike I was going shopping nor did I tell him I had bought them.  I just had them delivered and sat back and watched the expression on his face when he first saw them.  I also paid for them with my own money.  That, my friends, is the way to do it.

I will never forget the summer when our septic lines clogged.  What a disaster!  Four of us living together in a house with the plumbing getting worse by the day.  Mike was actually trying to fix our latest  life threatening situation.  He dug and augered every night after work.  He rented a high tech auger from Cox's Hardware in Mt. Vernon.  This one ran on electric and looked really impressive.  Mike had already opened up the septic tank lid in the back yard.  This night was so hot and we didn't have air conditioning.  You know that if you get hot it only makes your problems worse?  That's what I've noticed anyhow.  So, Mike had our son, Neil and me stationed in the yard guarding the septic tank while he was in the bathroom with the auger.  He yelled out the bathroom window telling us to get down on our hands and knees, stick our heads as far into the septic tank hole as we could, and let him know when we saw the auger coming out of the pipe.  There we were, Neil and I, patiently waiting for the "snake" to make it's appearance because that would mean the clog was gone, but we waited and waited and the auger never showed.  All this time we were aware of a whirling sound.  I thought it was the auger's motor, but Neil didn't think so.  We both looked toward the house at the same time, just in time, to see that auger whirling on the roof of our house like the blades on a helicopter.  Every so often, the auger would bang into the gutters and make a rather disturbing noise.  The look on Neil's face was priceless.  He was probably about fifteen years old and in all that time I had never seen him laugh so hard and haven't seen him laugh that hard to this day.  Of course I too thought this was the funniest thing I had ever saw.  We stood there laughing forgetting we were supposed to be helping.  I had to run over to the bathroom window to get Mike's attention over all the noise.  I yelled, "Mike, wrong hole."  His response, "Huh?"  This conversation went on several times before Mike finally pulled the plug.  I explained to him that the auger was coming out a pipe on the roof instead of going through the plumbing pipes.  Mike didn't think it was too funny, but to this day Neil and I still laugh about the whirling bird on the roof.  Mike ended up taking out the commode, digging up more lines, and after he finally found the correct place for the auger, he got things flowing again. 

My friends at work were amazed at Mike's remedy for fixing the starter in my car.  We would take turns driving to lunch.  One day I had four co-workers crammed into my little GEO Prism all talking at the same time.  Suddenly when I started the car, everyone stopped talking and all wore looks of surprise.  At first I thought, "what's up with everybody?" then I realized they had never witnessed anyone start a car like I just had.  See, Mike "hot-wired" the car so I had to start it by touching two wires together.  I had grown accustomed to starting my car like that for months so it was no big deal for me.  It was almost a year before Mike fixed that car.  He only fixed it then so we could trade it in. 
At this writing,  part of my bathroom floor is gone.  We've had a leak around the shower for years and I've been nagging him about it for years.  It got so bad, mushrooms were growing.  Something finally hit him a couple weeks ago and he decided he needed to fix the floor.  So he took all the tiles up and that was it.  I thought maybe he was on strike, so I asked when was he going to finish the bathroom floor.  He says he's just letting it dry out.  I'm thinking it's never going to dry out because he hasn't found the leak yet.  I sure wish he would finally get that "round tuit" he's been talking about.

There's more stories just like the ones I've shared, but no one has time for all that.  In Mike's defense, back when he wanted to, he was a really good handy man.  One good thing that has came out of 37 years of repairs like these, is that our sons have dedicated themselves to not being the kind of fix-it man that their dad is.