Love, Jimmie

Guess what works now?  My toilet.  Guess who fixed it?  Me!*  You may think me pathetic for being as ecstatic as I am over a working toilet but its been five months.  Levels this high of ecstasy far surpass any harsh names  you throw my way.  Besides, sticks and stones and all that.  I am too happy, happy over a porcelain seat with water that runs through it.  Murphy, too, is quite charmed.  His drinking fountain has been restored. Five long months with no properly working toilet and/or watering hole will do that to a person and/or her recalcitrant cat.  I’ve learned more about toilet maintenance than I ever cared to know and now feel a little greasy under my fingernails.

Guess what else works now?  My garage door openers. Both of them.  Guess who fixed them? Me!* I learned, all by myself*, how to reset those suckers.  It only took two years and some swear words and a new battery and the realization that the new battery was in upside down.  Now they work great and I can get rid of the one I’ve been using all this time that is held together by a rubber band once used to hold broccoli in a bunch. 

Guess what else I don’t have to worry about for a year or so?  My hot water heater.  Guess who figured that out?  Me!* I learned how to drain the water out of it and look for sediment, all by myself.* Turns out my house won’t blow up in a fiery explosion due to lack of working water heater, at least for a while.  This is good news. 

This is one of the happiest nights of my life.  I squealed like a little girl and clapped each time something was fixed.  Sigh.  I can go to bed content, secure in the knowledge that I am a grown-up who can fix things.*

*with the help of a handyman that I hired for the evening.  BUT!  I hovered over him a lot, which is certainly not at all annoying.  I watched everything he did.  I downloaded the manual for the garage door openers and told him which buttons to push and for exactly how long he was to push them.  I chose the code for the wall mount and I chose which button he was to mash on the opener.  I read the instructions on how to drain the heater and I followed him and his bucket of water on every trip he made to dump it.  Finally, I mooshed on the potty gasket which was fine but in the wrong place in the toilet tank.  I DID A LOT! 

In other news, it turns out that Seamus likes tool boxes.  He was all loved up on the handyman’s tool box, kind of curved around it and snuggling.  I wanted to take his picture for you but he caught me and ran off in embarrassment. 

So, anyone want to hire me for some general home maintenance?  I’d be happy to come over** and tinker around with your broken appliances.  Just let me know.

**with my handyman, naturally