Wednesday 27 May 2020

What use is a comedian without an audience?

I don't know why every simple task I have to do turns into a scene from a Norman Wisdom film, but it does.

Changing the washer on a kitchen tap recently took four days, during which time I made three trips to hardware shops, destroyed two expensive spanners bought for the job and bought four sets of inappropriate washers before finding the right ones in a cupboard upstairs. I mean, it's not as if I am an impractical person. I have spent my whole life working with tools in my hands.

Some months ago I was using my four-wheeled, articulated trolly to shift the stone lions from one place to another, when it developed a slow puncture. I had to remove the little wheel and take it to a tyre centre for a new inner tube. Simple eh?

Because the rear wheels are set within the frame, I had to drive the axle through the wheel mounts so that could be taken off from the inside, if you see what I mean. There were two split pins holding the wheels to the axle, so I closed them and drove them out. I tapped the axle with a hammer but it only moved about a quarter of an inch.

I got a heavier hammer and a bronze drift and began clouting the thing harder and harder, but it wouldn't budge. I got a metal-worker friend to take a look and he suggested that the axle had been burred by someone else clouting it with a hammer, and that I would have to grind off the burr before I could push it through.

I thought I had wasted more than enough time on it by then, so I spent the next few months inflating the tyre in the morning, putting a prop under the trolley, then inflating it again in the afternoon before wheeling it back in.

Next week I am going to have to use the trolley a lot, so yesterday I vowed to myself that I would repair it come what may. I don't want to spend every day on the inflation ritual.

So I turned it upside down to make life easier and... discovered two more split pins on the inside of the axle. I could have bashed away for a lifetime - or at least the lifetime of the trolley - before getting the wheel off.

If I have to live my life as if in a film, I wish it was not a comedy one.

12 comments:

  1. It comes of over-confidence. I changed a tap washer. Easy job? No. The tap body rotated a little on the connecting water pipe and damaged the fibre washer between them, so when water turned on it leaked profusely. Managed to find a rubber washer to do the job, but what was supposed to take half an hour took half a day and then a couple of days to dry everything out.

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    1. If it were not for lockdown I would get in a little man, despite that I have been doing these jobs myself for years.

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  2. When younger, fitter and knowlegible in these things my husband was always a go-to to help the neighbours. Alas when trouble often happened at ours he was out of the country working. Sod's Law I suppose. Now it's ring a pro from the Yellow Pages.

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    1. I used to be one of those people. For a while I did it for a living, then I lost my work ethic.

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  3. I blame youtube because now I think I can fix anything if I watch a video about how to do it. Quite often, tho, I regret it as it never turns out exactly as it should or sometimes it doesn't turn out at all and I realize I have wasted time and money. I am cheap and refrain from calling a professional when really, sometimes I really should!

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    1. You Tube is great for plumbing solutions. There are a lot of altruistic people out there.

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  4. I have similar calamities Tom - in my case I know it is total lack of patience. If a job doesn't go well straight away I am more of a hammer than a gentle person. Shalln't change now at my age so now I always take whatever it is to an expert and get my cheque book out.

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    1. Very wise. I try to delegate as much as possible when not in lockdown.

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  5. It's the gremlins, Tom. There are a lot around in my garage. If I drop a nut or washer they immediately spirit it away and it's always an irreplaceable one. Then, a month later when I have bought new they will leave it somewhere in sight, giggling, for me to find.

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    1. I used to do all my own car maintenance. I completely rebuilt a classic Volvo engine once. When I put it all back together there was a handful of nuts left over which I could find no place for, even though I had carefully put them all into labelled paper cups. The engine started first time and I held on to the nuts for a while before throwing them away.

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  6. My eyes glazed over a bit when you started on the trolley problem ... but I've spent years on the tap washer problem. It is definitely a state of mind - Bob the Builder's 'Can we fix it? Yes we can!'
    However, I'm on Weave's side. If there's $ to pay someone else to do quickly what I would take days of work hours to fix, then get out the check book.
    Back to Bob, in isolation, sometimes we just have to work it out for ourselves. The problem is it takes three times as long.
    I'm guessing this is a global circular argument.

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    1. The thing is that I am supposed to be a an experienced natural at all this, but the years have taken their toll on my usefulness. I think it boils down to boredom, hence the trolley.

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