Duct Tape, Plumbing, and Amputee Kludge

Give a man a roll of duct tape and he can fix stuff. Teach a man to use a roll of duct tape and he can rule the world.

Men like to fix stuff. I say men, because women tend to hire professionals to fix stuff. Women are no fun.

This was illustrated in my life by two recent events. First, my good friend Jim sent me a link to his favorite site where many manly do-it-yourself repairs are shown in all their glory. We’ll get to that a little later…

Secondly, I had a plumbing problem at my house. A few years ago we had all of the rusting 54-year-old water pipes in our house replaced. All of them except one two foot long inaccessible piece. This week I dug out a section of outdoor planter, exposing the offending pipe that runs under our house. I decided this was the time to tackle it. It involved crawling under the entire length our house and trying to break the rusted mess loose and carefully threading a new section of pipe into it.

So like any true professional I got a cup of coffee and sat on the ground outside the house and stared at the offending pipe where it stuck through the planter.

Any major plumbing job should begin with a) staring b) coffee c) sitting.

My wife approached as I was in this initial staring planning stage and asked what I was doing. I thought it was fairly obvious, but being that she’s a woman and doesn’t really understand complex construction techniques, I explained.

“I’m plumbing.”

“It looks like you’re sitting in the grass drinking a cup of coffee and staring at a rusty pipe,” she replied.

“I guess that shows what you know,” I retorted.

She made the ‘wife sigh’ noise and asked, “I know I’m going to regret this, but why are you ‘plumbing’ in the grass, with a cup of coffee?”

I made the ‘husband sigh’ noise which translates to: “You’re a silly woman who knows nothing about the complex techniques of home repair”

but out loud I said, “Because this rusty section of pipe must be replaced before it bursts and floods the world killing all manner of small forest life and running up our water bill.”

My lovely and patient wife cupped her hands over her eyes and wailed, “PLEASE GOD!! NOT PLUMBING!!  PLEASE DON’T TOUCH THE PLUMBING!”

Being an intuitive and sensitive husband I knew the source of her dismay. In the past I had attempted, and dare I say, accomplished many plumbing jobs around the house. The last one involved replacing our water wasting toilet with an efficient new water saving toilet. This two-hour job stretched into about a week and contaminated the water supply of several nearby counties. But on the plus side I didn’t have to call a plumber and pay their outrageous fees. On the downside we had no water and had to use the bathroom at the corner gas station for a week. Then there were the fines and lawyer fees. But NOT ONE PENNY went to a licensed plumber! I had clearly won my point!

As my lovely and patient wife whimpered and mumbled to herself, I got up from the grass and held her tenderly. I said those words every wife longs to hear.

“Worry not my love,” I whispered, “I’m going to call a plumber this time.”

She melted into my masculine and manly arms and looked deeply into my eyes saying, “Go take a shower you smell like sewer fart!”

A little shudder ran through me as I remembered her pet name for me from the early romantic days of our courtship. She hadn’t called me ‘sewer fart’ for so long. Take a lesson, men, you can rekindle the romance. Just admit when you need to call in professional help. Don’t be like the guys from my buddy Jim’s favorite site. (I told you we’d get to it.)

This an example of a "kludge" from the blog There, I Fixed It!

My buddy Jim who is the King of Kludge sent me a great link which I’ll share in a moment. Jim could be an entire blog post, but I’ll make this short because I know you’re bored.

Jim has only one leg because he talked a surgeon into cutting his leg off.

(You might want to take a moment and read that sentence again.)

Jim has only one leg because he talked a surgeon into cutting his leg off.

The amputation occurred after 10 years of traveling the country to all the major medical centers seeking relief for intense chronic pain from nerve damage in his knee. All of the ‘experts’ with ‘medical training’ said an amputation wouldn’t work.  But they couldn’t find the cause or a cure or an effective treatment.

Since Jim REALLY likes do-it-yourself projects I was afraid he would just grab a chainsaw and whack his leg off himself. How hard can it be?.  On a couple of occasions he joked that if he got the job started, the doctors wouldn’t have any choice but to finish it. Yes, it was a joke, but sometimes I wondered. The good news is that he was right and the doctors were wrong. It worked.  Leg gone = Pain gone. 

Being a one-legged do-it-yourselfer in a wheelchair does not slow Jim down… much. He runs a successful business that supports his family. He still welds, hammers, saws, and turns wood on a lathe. He makes a huge mess out of many projects. On many days he smells like a sewer fart.  Just like a guy with two functioning legs.

Now on to There, I Fixed It. Enjoy, and thanks for the link, Jim.

 (LAST WORD) I did indeed call a plumber and the rusty horrible pipe was replaced in about an hour at a reasonable cost. Dammit! I’ll never hear the end of that….

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