Mr. Handycapable

By no stretch of the imagination do I consider myself 'handy' or 'skilled' when it comes to manual labor (manual labor...wasn't he the president of Mexico in the 1930's?). In fact, I am closer to being completely inept than proficient when it comes to making most household repairs...and we are talking remedial tasks like replacing defective light switches (electricity gives me the heebee jeebees). However, over the course of the last month or so I have managed to string together a few repair successes.

It all started when various appliances and machines around the house became sentient and schemed to torment me. If you recall, a couple of months ago the oven started acting up, the garage door jumped the tracks and bent the railing, and various light switches around the house decided to stop working. I first tasted victory repairing the garage door with some WD-40, a rubber mallet, and a pair of vice grips (I took Walt Kowalski's advice to Thao to heart).

After taking a couple of well-deserved victory laps, I decided to tackle the oven. Our oven had been acting schizo for months, throwing various errors that hinted at a control panel issue. I called GE and was told that a tech call would cost $75 to just come out, $75 an hour, the cost of parts and tax...and maybe even a convenience charge if they didn't like how I looked. When I added it all up the repair of the oven was going to cost around $650.00. Now, I don't know about you, but spending $650.00 bucks these days just isn't something I like doing. So, I turned to YouTube, searched my error messages, and found a quick tutorial on insulating the ribbon cables inside the control panel. What happens is that the particular wall oven I have is prone to humidity and steam causing the ribbon cable to short out. To stop this the ribbon cables have to be kept apart. A couple of Hello Kitty post-it notes placed in strategic areas of the control panel solved the issue. I think Walt Kowalski would be proud, Hello Kitty post-its be damned!

I have also managed to patch a small hole in the garage floor, replace some sprinkler heads, and fix some bad PVC piping. Not too bad for a guy that back in high school put a spare tire on his bitchin' 1973 Mercury Comet inside out. Yes, tires can be put on inside out...and no, it will not spin properly.