Small Victories
by E. Noel Preston, MD

   This weekend I finished two monumental projects. I changed the windshield wipers on my old Chrysler and replaced a burned-out porcelain lamp socket on the ceiling fan in the family room. And, I swear to God, both of these jobs were infuriating beyond belief! Someone who knew what they were doing could have done both projects in less than an hour, but it took me all Friday afternoon and most of Saturday morning.

   A few years ago a service station (now that's something you don't see anymore) on Peachtree Street advertised, "We fix everything but a broken heart," and I thought, "I can do that," and for most of my life I have. I've repaired leaking faucets, stopped up toilets, leaks in the roof, squeaky doors, broken locks, burned up ovens, blown out stereo speakers, jammed windows, cracks in the wallboard, and sliding doors that jumped off their tracks. I've replaced car batteries, changed flat tires, installed new backup and brake light bulbs, added brake, power steering and transmission fluids, and have changed automobile fuses.

   I've always thought it was valuable to be as self-sufficient as possible, and have tried to teach my patients the same thing. "What are you going to do," I would ask a family, "if your child runs a fever or starts vomiting, or gets an earache, and you're coming back from vacation and your child gets sick on a Sunday afternoon in Selma, Alabama? Are you going to ignore it, or go to an emergency room, or call me long distance, or are you going to know what to do?" Plus, when you know how to fix things yourself, aside from saving on the cost of a service call, you can fix things at night or on the weekend, you can choose your materials, you can be sure it will get done on time, and you may even do a better job than some guy who figures you wouldn't know the difference between a good repair and a sloppy one.

   But this time it was different. These jobs were worse than pounding square pegs into round holes. These were exasperating from beginning to end. I bought the replacement wiper blades a month or so ago at one of those big box mass merchandiser places, and had checked the in-store replacement guide to make sure I bought the right size. The new blades were made in China and had several different sets of instructions, depending on whether the car's wiper arms had bayonet mounts, female brackets, hook assemblies, snap tabs or some other kind of wiper blade attachment I've managed to forget. The Chrysler owner's manual was silent as to what type of wiper blades it used, and had no instructions at all on how to replace them.

   According to the diagram on the package instructions, the blades already on the car looked as if they were on female brackets, and the instructions said to push the retaining tab "up," but they didn't say which way was "up." I pushed the tabs as hard as I could in both directions, while trying to "pull the blade away from the arm," as directed by the instructions. YEOWTCH!!! This did nothing except tear a thumbnail and two fingernails down to the quick. Frustrated, I smacked the blade from the front, and it came off the wiper arm in a flash! The blades were not on a female bracket at all -- they were on a hook assembly, but how in the world was I supposed to know that? Chrysler could have at least said what kind of attachment they used in their owner's manual.

   Amazingly, replacing the burned out porcelain lamp socket in the ceiling fan was even worse. None of the new lamp sockets come with wires already attached, as they did on the original one. The first wires I bought were too big, and the store had closed for the night when I went back to get a smaller size. The next day I got the right size of wires and attached them without any problems, but putting the brass cover over the base of the lamp assembly was harder than it should have been. The screws holding the cover to the lamp base were unbelievably tiny, and I couldn't hold onto them with my sore fingers. This meant a fourth trip in less than 12 hours back to the hardware store to get longer screws I could hold on to.

   Both projects are finally over, and the car and the ceiling fan look no different, no better, no more splendid than when I started. And although they both work properly and I didn't have to wait for some good ole boy to get back from deer hunting, all this effort, all this aggravation was just to maintain the status quo. I lost the weekend, and Susan and I didn't go to the North Georgia Fair in Marietta, the outlets at Discover Mills, or the spoof of The Rocky Horror Picture Show at Dad's Garage. Instead, I have sore fingers, a sore back, and a crick in my neck from looking up the private parts of a ceiling fan. I'm thinking maybe it's time to close the old toolbox and start doing something fun rather than something that wasn't really all that necessary.

   Maybe it's time to take up deer hunting.

E. Noel Preston, M.D. is a pediatrician in solo practice in Peachtree Corners. 6063 Peachtree Parkway, Suite 202-A, Norcross. (770) 448-1553. More information can be found at www.PeachtreeCornersPediatrics.com

092605

Archives: