Nuthin a little WD-40 won't fix

"It's a great thing when you realize you still have the ability to surprise yourself. Makes you wonder what else you can do that you've forgotten about." ~Alan Ball, American Beauty, 1999

 

 A year and a half ago I moved back in to my parents house, licking my wounds from a recent divorce and toting with me 4 kids and a dog. I'm sure that scenario wasn't exactly what my parents planned during their recent retirement, but I was welcomed back with open arms and my old bedroom.

Fast forward to the present, when I found a cute house in town to rent, close to my kids' schools and the park. The thought of moving in to my own place was exhilarating, and - to be honest - a bit terrifying. As I've mentioned before in previous posts, there are things I know I do well in life. And there are definitely things that I don't do well. For instance, anything that has to do with home maintenance and repair. Don't get me wrong, I can change a lightbulb and exchange a furnace filter with minor disruption. But if you ask me to mow the lawn or operate a weed whip, I'll start to twirl my hair absent mindedly and avoid eye contact. It's not that I would refuse to do it, it's just that I don't know how. Seriously. The first half of my life I had a dad that took care of the home stuff and outside work. The second half of my life I had a husband to do it. Now that I'm out on my own again, I realized I needed to learn to do these type of things. And fast.

Last weekend I went to Ikea with my parents, determined to buy a bedroom set. My dad waited in the loading area, while my mom and I picked out what I wanted. The sales person explained that I needed to pick up the furniture in the Self Serve warehouse, and told me where to grab a cart in which to load the boxes. After wandering around the disorientating Ikea maze, my mom and I finally ended up where we needed to be. I located a cart, checked my paper from the sales person, and headed toward Aisle 4. A moment later my mom asked, "When is someone going to come help us get the furniture?" "Mom," I said. "That's what Self Serve means. It means we have to get it ourselves."

"Oh," she replied. "I don't really like that."

"Me neither."

 

We finally tracked down the boxes we needed, and started loading the 10,000 pound pressed particle board furniture on to the cart. Attemting to navigate the cart toward the cashier was like trying to steer a semi truck on a go-kart course. I was all over the place and had very little control. But determined to do this like a functioning adult, I soldiered on.

Later on, I excitedly told my dad that I was sure I could put the furniture together myself. "Ikea is like every divorced woman's best friend," I told him.

"Who says that?" he asked. "Ikea?"

"No. My divorced friends."

A couple hours later he showed up at my new place with a handful of tools. "Happy housewarming! These will help when you work on the furniture."

"Yeah, about that..." I said warily. "I was looking at the instructions. There are no words in Ikea's instruction manuals, just pictures. And there is a picture of one person doing it all alone, with a sad face. And there is a big X over that picture. Next to it is a picture of two people working on it together, and they're both smiling. So I think that means you should maybe help me. You know, if you're not busy."

Luckily he agreed. Secretly I think he thought he better help me get set up so I didn't hurt myself and wind up back at his place indefinitely.

The next several hours were spent learning how to count pieces, operate tools, and figure out specifics of diagrams. I also learned why so many men swear when putting things together. It comes so natural. Like second nature. When I was doing battle with a screw driver and attempting to get a piece to line up, I couldn't help myself. The cursing flew out of my mouth like a symphony of my ancestors' mother tongue. "Get IN there, you dirty rotten bitch."

I think my dad was impressed.

And now I have a completed bedroom set that I can proudly say I helped put together. Well, most of it. I got bored with the hinges on the closet so I wandered into the kitchen and grabbed a Mike's Hard Lemonade, hoping my dad could finish without me.

He did.

All in all, I'm glad I tackled something that involved tools. It took the mystery and the unknown out of something I would have normally avoided. In the future, I can actually look at a screw driver and tell if it's a Phillips or not. Before this, the most recent useful advice I gave my daughters was in the shoe aisle at Target. "Seriously girls, don't buy high heels unless you know how to walk in them. It's a very unattractive look for a woman."

My 11 year old rolled her eyes. "Mom, I already YouTube'd it. You walk heel to toe, unless you're on steps and then it's toe only."

Well, so much for my much-imparted widsom.

So even though I feel like I've learned a lot of useful skills the last week, I know I have a lot more to learn. But the beauty of tackling one project gives you the confidence to tackle more. When my dad brought over a fully stocked tool kit the other night, I looked at it with a sense of possibility.

I've learned that WD-40 works wonders.

And how to work a stud finder and a leveler.

I've learned that if push comes to shove, I can do a lot of things by myself.

But it sure is nice to have help.