Steve: Mr. Do it Yourself

In the long family tradition of "if it works, I did it right," I answered the call of duty today on a couple home projects. First, I had to fix one of the doors on the entertainment stand. It had cracked a couple months ago and the daughter broke it off completely during a hissy fit a couple weeks ago. So I put the part of the door that broke off to the side and promptly forgot to do anything about it. This is standard guy procedure, as most guys won't attest to, as it's a secret (I risk losing my "order of manly men" card that I got at a florist once - really - over this). So today, my first weekend of summer vacation, since I was writing my paper last weekend, it doesn't count, I finally got to Home Depot (I'm not allowed to go to Lowe's my wife can tell you why as I'm not sure) and found some connectors. These things, which I think are actually called "connectors," are flat pieces of metal with holes in them. I bought one four-pack of the three inch connectors and then went to find screws. I never knew the difference between the different types of screws, but after spending 45 minutes staring at all of them at the store, I really don't know the difference.

So then I go home, connectors and screws in hand. I promptly get to work on fixing the door. At the end of an hour which involved far less swearing than one might imagine such a simple project to entail, I looked upon a fixed door. By fixed, of course, I mean "both pieces are attached to each other in vaguely the same manner they were before it broke." This is good news, because it means there's one more barrier the little boy has to get through before he can strew movies and movie cases all over the living room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom, conservatory (and we don't even HAVE one of those, so I'm really not sure how he managed that), etc.

Then it's time for a Coca-Cola. There's nothing in the world better than a cold Coca-Cola. Now I know some of you will say "Love" or "Family" are right up there, and they are. But really, Coca-Cola doesn't wake you up naked on the landing at five in the morning and Coca-cola doesn't ask you to go to Jared (I HATE Jared jewelers commercials). So the tie goes to Coca-cola, as one might expect.

After a nice Coca-Cola, and a nap that lasted about 52 seconds, it's time to get to work on Demon Dryer. Demon Dryer, as I've mentioned before, doesn't understand the core definition of its purpose. The battle of Steve v. Demon Dryer is to last three rounds.

Round 1. I pull Demon Dryer out of his corner and lodge myself behind it. I unhook the dryer hose due to the presumption that there is a blockage that is preventing the stuff from drying. I pull out some lint, but not in sufficient quantities to effect an official blockage. Then I stand up to let my wife know what's going on, since she was looking in on me. This results in my slamming my head on the bottom of the cupboard that overhangs the dryer. Round 1 goes to Demon Dryer.

Round 2. I start reattaching the dryer hose, which is made of aluminum. The wonderful thing about aluminum is that it's plyable. This thing that really sucks about aluminum is that it's plyable and it likes to fold in on itself. Since our dryer hose has had approximately seven miles trimmed off of it to make it fit better, we now have about eight inches of dryer hose left. This means that whatever I can attach on one end won't allow me to stretch enough to get to the other end. Demon Dryer knew this and didn't tell me; laughing to itself the whole time. Round 2 goes to Demon Dryer.

Round 3. I somehow manage to get the hose mostly attached at both ends with a modicum of swearing and only three lost teeth (don't ask). I then stand up and somehow manage to convince the laws of physics to bend the rules a little for me so that I can successfully get out from behind Demon Dryer. Finally, I push Demon Dryer back to its original position, which is where it wanted to be the whole time. So basically, we spent an hour to get back to where we started. Demon Dryer 3, Steve 0. We have a unanimous decision. BUT Demon Dryer works, and dries clothes slightly less slowly than before, so perhaps we might have eked out a draw on a technicality...

Working on Demon Dryer is like saddling a cow. You work like hell, but what's the point?

Now I need to go to the store and pick up a printer. I hope it's not an evil printer.