The Lost Day
I have spent most of my day dealing with a neighbor’s kitchen sink.
Being one of my neighbors means the individual is a rightwing Republican Christian, but there is a mitigating factor, they like cats, including feral cats.
Because I work at home I obviously can be disturbed at any time, for any reason, because that is not really working, like being a greeter at WalMart. So I am inured to being interrupted at all hours, no matter what I may be doing, by people for all sorts of weird reasons. I am also the only person in the neighborhood who owns tools, so rather than buying a tool to do something, they will unsuccessfully attempt to borrow one. [I don’t loan tools to anyone who doesn’t have their own tools.]
So I go to their place to see about a leak from the kitchen sink. It was my amateur opinion [I am not a plumber, nor do I play one at political events] that the 1″ by 3″ hole in the drain trap was probably the cause for all of the water under the sink, as when you put a teaspoon of water in the sink, that’s where it came out.
I told them to call their landlord, because they needed to replace the trap. As “trap” was deemed to be a technical term, I was asked to call the landlord, which I did. I know the landlord, and was informed that his regular plumber was out of town for a week, and asked if I would take care of it.
So I spent my day going to a hardware store, buying parts, and installing them. If the existing parts had been installed recently, say during the Reagan era, this would have been 15 minutes under the sink. The existing parts were installed during Harry Truman’s second term, and you have to move carefully to avoid breaking anything, so it was two hours I’ll never get back.
What I don’t understand is how these Republicans think they can be self-sufficient when they can’t even change a P-trap under a sink? If they “go Galt” they’ll be back as soon as they run out of toilet paper.
8 comments
“Because I work at home I obviously can be disturbed at any time, for any reason, because that is not really working, like being a greeter at WalMart.”
Now there’s a phenomenon familiar to every professional musician. “I’m practicing, preparing for tonight’s rehearsal” carries about the same weight with neighbors (or even housemates) as “I’m reading a mystery novel” or “I’m watching a TV show” or “I’m partying with some friends”: the notion that practicing is not recreation but instead essential work for anyone is beyond many people’s comprehension.
I don’t lend tools either. In my defense, I also don’t borrow them. Continuing the musician analogy, a pro oboist whom I barely knew asked me if she could borrow my modern-pitch soprano recorder for a few weeks for some job she had landed that required her to double. To my credit, I was patient in explaining to her that the instrument was a daily-use item for me in my own work performing and teaching on the adjunct faculty of a small local university, and that that particular instrument cost me (equivalent in today’s dollars) about $1200. I confess I enjoyed watching her literally gasp when I said that. People who ask to borrow things like that would not only borrow your toothbrush… they’d borrow your brand new sports car.
.-= last blog ..Howard Dean On Individual Health Insurance =-.
I cannot fathom someone who would not buy and use tools as needed. And it’s amazing that the Republicans in your area are so inept and incapable. When I lived in the piny hills of North Louisiana half the homes had a passle of cars up on blocks in the front yard, used mostly for spare parts to keep the one or two ragged other cars that actually ran on the road. Needless to say they had no problems with simple repairs like changing a trap. I wonder why your particular Republicans are so helpless and incapable? Pathetic. Just pathetic.
– Badtux the Handy Penguin
Ah, yes, “Can I borrow a notebook computer for a week? I’m going to an out-of-town meeting and I need to keep in contact with the office.”
It doesn’t occur to people that I can justify owning several computers because each is different, with software and hardware required for a specific function, and, in one case, for a specific client. If any of them break, I have to fix them ASAP, because if I need them, I really need them.
People who don’t own tools, don’t know what they cost, or how to use them properly.
My oldest nephew had the tool box stolen from his VW Bus and called to see if I remembered what it cost, and was taken aback when the total cost of the tools in the box was nearly as much as the value of the Bus. I had assembled the tools for him over a few years, and there were some specialized VW sockets in there that cost $50 apiece. He went surfing in Mexico, and while the mechanics are good down in Baja, they are “tool poor”.
If they don’t have to put in the sweat to buy something, they don’t value it.
I think it’s growing up in cities, Badtux. On a farm, or a rural area, you have to fix it yourself, if it’s going to get fixed.
My Mother manages some apartments and she goes nuts when the tenants call her because they blew a fuse, or a light doesn’t work. They can’t figure out that the toilet shouldn’t run constantly, or how to light a pilot light. The level of ignorance is astounding. If rural people were this incompetent, they would die soon enough.
i once made the mistake of loaning out my shop vac. it never came back, of course, and i was cursing the borrower and lender both when the washer overflowed and i had to go out and buy a new one [shop vac, not washer]. this time, for an extra $10, they had available a ‘quieter’ model. uh huh, riiiiiight, i thought to myself. turned out to be one of the best purchases i’ve ever made. whatever muffler design they came up with is worth every penny of that $10.
but yeah, tool-lending stories don’t generally turn out well.
.-= last blog ..Fortunately, =-.
Bryan,
If by “city” you mean high-population-density, urban, city core environments, I don’t think it is a city upbringing, per se. Over the last 20 years I have known (and taught) many city-raised yound adults who simply don’t behave that way and don’t have that sense of entitlement.
I see it more in those who grow up in suburban/exurban environemnts. It is also more common in the area where I went to high school, a town of 15,000 or so in rural NC. FWIW, it, too, is heavily rightwing Republican Christian.
There is some element of the “I’m entitled to what I want,” attitude, coupled with a presumption that “everyone else should be just like me”, overlain with a remarkable lack of curiosity about the world, with a dash of xenophobia thrown in. Hmmmm — sounds like our most recent ex-president.
Best,
Jim
That’s an interesting principle, not lending tools to those who don’t have their own. Till now, the main principle in this field that I had heard, I think from B. Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac, is the one that goes “neither a borrower nor a lender be.”
Maybe it’s been a case of that principle not having had to come up in the rural area where I live, because there’s no one on this road who doesn’t have a full collection of his own tools, and even the few people who did borrow tools from me now and then, such as extension ladders, stopped doing so as soon as they became well off enough to get their own, till now tool-borrowing and asking neighbors to come fix things is nearly unknown.
My road is also different in that the chief Republican on it is the most proficient tool owner and user of us all. He used to make cabinets for the Smithsonian. He’s the one who tries to cut away only HALF of a saw kerf line.
But there is still one woman here that WOULD try to borrow things on the order of that new sports car. But I think that comes under a different category and level of sanity than borrowing tools.
Yes, Hipparchia, if a tool goes missing, it is best to treat it as an opportunity to upgrade to a newer, better, faster version, except … these days the possible replacements are garbage in too many cases.
Jim, I definitely wasn’t thinking major urban center. I generally think of any area with more than 10.ooo people as a city, 2-10K as a town, 200-2,000 a village, and below that rural. I live in a village, that is called a town because that’s the smallest incorporated unit in Florida, but is considered a city for most paperwork. The Post Office refuses to give us a ZIP code which complicates the state payments of sales tax reimbursements to local government.
It may simply be that parents have been so busy trying to earn a living, that they hire people to do things, and their children grow up believing that that is what you should do. My Dad’s attitude was if it broke, you fixed it. If you didn’t know how, you got a book that showed you how.
We had solar water heating in the 1950s. While waiting for a new water heater to arrive my Dad connected 300 feet of hose to the plumbing and put it out in a sunny part of the yard. It was effective and the sort of thing you aren’t going to learn in an apartment.
That’s pretty much the situation I prefer, Carl, because people who own tools will take care of them and return them in a timely fashion. There are things that you don’t use very often and might have trouble finding a place to store. Now it’s not so bad because you can rent them, but even then I check rental prices and will buy a tool if it is cheaper than renting, which is why I ended up with a tile saw that I only needed for one project.
I understand about the cabinet maker, as my Mother’s father was also a cabinet maker, and he could do things by eye, that I can’t do with a laser guided radial arm saw. The fit and finish on his tool box was worthy of a dining room. Such people transcend carpentry and become wood sculptors.
I think it’s a value system, Carl. Even as they complain about the prices charged by “craftsmen”, they don’t value the people or their work. “My stuff is better and more important than your stuff.” It’s the same attitude as people in parking lots who open their doors into the side of your car, and then check their door for damage.