Fixing up the little things

When you live in an older home and I guess even in a newer home, it seems as if there is always something going wrong. If it isn’t one thing it’s another. One that can be fixed by yourself, or by your husband or any man in the house, doesn’t seem to be quite so bothersome, but when you can’t handle it, you say to yourself, who can I get to fix that?

Such examples as the toilet bowl flusher, the lamp switch that has decided not to work, a faucet someplace that keeps dripping, the vacuum cleaner hose that seems to be stopped up (never sweep up the needles from the Christmas tree if there are many and aren’t there always many if you leave it up too long?). Little things that exasperate you but are too small to call a fix-it man because the call alone costs more than fixing whatever is on the blink. You either find a good neighbor or a relative or even a co-worker. Many times this happens and you luck out and find someone, and what a relief because some of the things can take a lot of patience and you try to live with it until one day your patience gives out.

At our house recently the switch on our downstairs cellar light broke. Have you ever had to go downstairs to the basement in the dark? Flashlights come in handy but are not the answer. You try to remember to get whatever has to be done in the cellar during the dayl but sometimes that doesn’t work. The bulbs can be turned on manually at night once you are down there, but when you come upstairs do you remember to turn it off before you climb the stairs? Not with me, it’s just such a habit to come up the stairs when you realize they aren’t going to be turned off by the broken switch. Back down the stairs you go! With words under your breath.

We have two decorative kerosene lamps. One is now wired, the other isn’t but both are antique. One has its original shade while the other was replaced. Also in our dining room in a replica of a gas chandelier that has a similar lamp shade, the original. All three shades were broken within a three week period. I thought our home must be jinxed. All three were accidents.

To make a long story short, the first was hit by a man’s head as he walked by it, just as he has for years. How did he bump it and knock it? Fortunately he caught it so it didn’t crash to the floor. One piece was broken off. The second one a few days latter happened to be in the wrong place sitting on a bedside table. A framed picture hanging on the wall fell down, hit it and broke two pieces of the shade. No one’s fault except the person in the picture that hit it. The third was a shade on a table side of a couch. That was completely broken into pieces, not to be patched. That was replaced by myself who was clumsy when cleaning. Sitting and crying didn’t help, as I’m not a crier. Fortunately a cousin can glue together perfection and the naked eye can fool you in finding it. Two shades glued and one shade replaced.

That is my story this week. I imagine those reading this have more than one or two stories to tell on the same order. We are all not alone.