I fancy myself as a bit of a handyman. If something goes wrong around the house, I’m pretty sure I can fix it, even though I may not know anything about it. The one chore I avoid is playing around with electricity. Electricity and I don’t get along. It started when I purchased my first house so many years ago. I was trying to fix a ceiling light, under the wrongful impression that the power to the light was off, when I touched a couple of wires I was thrown off my step ladder, across the room and slammed into a wall. If it wasn’t for that wall I may have set a Guinness World record for electrical toss for an amateur electrician. Damn that wall. I could have been famous.
Turns out, the previous owner of the house had somehow by-passed the shutoff breaker for that and most of the other rooms. When we had a real electrician check it out, he first cried at how bad the electrical work was and then smiled when he realized how much he could charge us to correct it. I learned my lesson, let the pros kill themselves trying to fix my lights.
When it comes to most other home fix-ups, I’m your guy. Just the other day I noticed that a drip system I had set up to water plants in the small foyer outside our front door had started to leak. We are located in water starved California, so I felt it my responsibility to get the drip system up and working correctly before some nosy water conservationist noticed the water stains on my pavement. Yea, we got ’em. The same people who complained that our hedges were taller than allowed by our HOA while the plants were still in their pots and before they were planted. Once in the ground, they were well below the maximum height. Every HOA has one of them. They anoint themselves the HOA Gestapo.
Back to the leaks. Taking a look at the offending sprinkler line it looked like a simple fix. Just run the DIY (Do It Yourself Store) and pick up a couple of parts to fix the problem. Nice and simple. What could go wrong? Yes, I actually thought that. My first mistake. Remember, what can go wrong will go wrong.
I thought my problem would be fixed by just replacing the old faucet that the sprinkler line was attached to. It was a threaded faucet, no need to sweat the fitting. So I made my first trip to the DIY store, picked up a new nib and then came home and replaced the old one. It worked for about 5 minutes. When I turned the water main back on, my one leak had now turned into three leaks.
Surveying the new damage, I made a list of new fittings I needed and headed to the DIY for my second visit. After replacing the offensive hookups, I again turned the water main on. I went to the valve the sprinkler was hooked to and turned it on. No, that’s not me crying (well, maybe a little), there was a major fail from another fitting and I was getting soaking wet as the sprinkler line flew around our little courtyard, spraying water like one of those giant octopus tentacles from the movie “20 Leagues Under The Sea.” I’m glad my wife was so entertained by my misfortune. She does have a nice laugh.
Instead of quickly running back to the DIY store for more parts, I decided to take a break and develop a new strategy. Some may call it trying to avoid the problem, I call it long term thinking. So, after a few beers to help me look at the issue from a different point of view, I headed back to the DIY store. It appeared to me that the man at the checkout stand recognized me as one of those guys who was having trouble with a project and was trying to spend their way out of it. He had a sly smile as if he was thinking of how to spend the bonus he was going to receive as a result of my frequent purchases.
Considering how things were going for me, I was now becoming paranoid and started buying two of each part, just in case one failed. As soon as I came home, I started to implement my new plan and discovered one of the new parts I had would not work with the existing parts I already had. I needed a line with two female fittings. I hung my head and realized another trip to DIY was in my future.
As I walked into the store for the umpteenth time (a real technical term), the check out guy handed me a W-4 to fill out, a store vest, and told me there was a clean-up in aisle 5 that needed attention. Since I was in the store so much, I might as well be useful. After giving him a phony laugh, I headed back to the sprinkler aisle to try and figure out how to solve my problem. I needed a line with two female fittings. I knew I had a length of hose just the right length at home, I just needed to add a second female end. I purchased what I thought was the correct part and headed home. You’ve heard of the old saying, “Measure twice, cut once?” I have but since there was no need to measure, I just cut one of the fittings off the hose, to discover just after I did it, the hose actually had two female fittings. This is when I demonstrated the proper use of colorful language to address frustrating situations. After calming down, I remembered I had a new fitting in the bag I brought home from the DIY and all I had to do was put a new one on. No problem, right? That is if the fitting was the correct size. Really, who knew that there are different fitting sizes for a common garden hose. I am sure this is a conspiracy of “Big Hardware” to keep suckers like me returning to their store to spend their retirement fund to fix a simple leak in a sprinkler line.
My next visit to the DIY had me wearing a big hat and sunglasses in an effort to disguise my identity. It didn’t work. The employees recognized me and one started whooping and hollering because their number in the pool of how many times I would come back came up. At least I made one person’s day.
I am happy to announce that my little drip sprinkler system that services 6 potted plants in our foyer is finally working properly. It may look like an oil pipeline that crosses the state of North Dakota but it works.
Now I have one more leak to clear up. It’s the one from my wife as she tells all my friends about my sprinkler adventure.
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