I’ve never been the kind of woman who has waited for their husband to come home to install curtain rods or handle common home repairs.
Growing up in the Farner household meant there was little distinction between who could learn to use tools if the interest was there. My parents very handy and as I’ve proclaimed on more than one occasion, could fix anything. My father was gifted with pliers, coat hangers and black electrical tape while my mother’s talents lay in cloth and yarn. As children, watching the two of them work their magic and then later assisting them, it would have been inconceivable that we could have fledged our nest without better than average mechanical skills. While I enjoyed playing house with my dollies, I was just as happy building with the Tinker Toys, Lego’s, Lincoln Logs and my brothers’ Erector sets.
By the time I moved out on my own, I knew what most common tools were by name and what they were used for. Whenever I encountered hardware that needed replacement or adjustment; from door knobs to hinges, I would simply grab a screwdriver and take it apart. Most of the time I was successful.
My husband, Dave, did not have the same type of childhood experience as I did. His father was born with cerebral palsy and his mother was a business professional. Whenever a repair needed to be done around their home, a handy-man was called in. Today he claims that everything he’s learned about home repair he’s learned from me. It’s a sweet accolade but also a tiresome burden.
My mechanical skills, coupled with our early married life as a Navy family have resulted in my being the “go-to” person for my home repair items that many women would have simply reserved for their husbands. If I’d had to wait for Dave to come home to have some tasks completed, I would have waited months. Besides, I liked doing most little jobs like painting and wall papering. Installing curtain rods were hardly a challenge.
Fast forward almost forty years and despite his retirement from military service, I am still pretty much the go-to gal for most of the little repairs around the house. For the most part, I still enjoy the work with one major exception, plumbing.
A couple of weeks ago I took it upon myself to switch out the flow valve from our downstairs powder room. I don’t know why but there seems to be correlation between toilet gut failure and the space in which the toilet sits: the tighter the space, the more apt the guts will need replacing. And so it was with the powder room.
With only ten inches or so of working space, I contorted myself around the side of the tank, twisting my spine in ways it really doesn’t like to go anymore. The process itself was pretty straightforward. Despite the fact this was a high-tech flow valve designed to provide dual flushing modes, in the end, all guts are pretty much installed the same way and all instructions say the same thing, “hand tighten only, do not over tighten.”
This is the biggest challenge with toilet valve replacement, finding the proper amount of tightness between not enough and too much. In the past, I have positioned a folded paper towel under the tank under the water cut off to check for drips. I don’t know why I didn’t this time, but I didn’t. I just walked away and forgot about it until the other day when I reached for the last roll of toilet paper it the stand in the corner and was surprised to find it swollen and damp on the bottom. Further investigation revealed a puddle of water around the toilet and surrounding hardwood floor stained and slightly buckled. Crap!
I turned off the water supply, mopped up the floor, set up a fan and walked away. Dave knew I didn’t want to do my contortionist act again and said he’d take a look at it “later” and then headed for the backyard, where his passion really lies. After several hours I realized “later” was going to be a lot later than I’d hoped for so I decided to just get it done myself. An hour or so later, having repeating the steps I’ve done many times before, the valve was re-seated, tightened and a paper towel tucked under the water cut off valve. Five days later there are no signs of drips. Yeah!
It isn’t always easy being my father’s daughter, ready to take on household repairs when most women would defer to their husbands, sons or handyen. I was raised to believe that women able to anything a man can, where physical strength will allow and I take pride in the jobs I do. As I age though, and some jobs seem more of an annoyance than challenge, I think I will let Dave take care of it; by calling a plumber and writing a check . Then maybe I can get some time to play in the yard as well.
It appears as though winter is gone for good; at least for this part of the year. In the past several weeks the drab, bleak world that was my winter lawn has awaken with the deep greens of the lawn, the bright yellow blooms of my daffodils, the white blossoms on my dogwood and most recently the pink buds on the azaleas. The air is full of the chorus of birds as they sing a refrain of joy and thanksgiving. Our winter visitors, the junkos have moved on and the hummingbirds have returned. A pair of robins have taken over the nest built by the house finches last spring and I’ve spied two blue eggs in the bottom. Meanwhile a male flicker has decided to proclaim his territory by thrumming a beat on my gutters every morning. Together with the goldfinches, blue birds, blue jays, cardinals, orioles, chickadees, titmice, red-winged blackbirds, purple grackles, they provide a lively show on the mornings I take the time to have my coffee on the deck. It is such a contrast to the cold, silent white scenes that dominated the winter months.
