I don’t know how I would manage even the most simple of tasks without my husband. Without him around, everything would simply fall apart.
He left early for our vacation so I came home from work, checked the mail, flipped the locks and grabbed a sandwich to go. I punched the button to initiate the automatic door opener.
The door slid open a bit, but nowhere near enough to release the car. I pulled on the automatic reset cord and pushed the button for the door to lift. The gears made a lot of noise but did not hoist the door one bit.
I tried it again, and again.
I gave up and physically hoisted the door open so I could back the car out of the garage. I parked the car, got out, reached up and pulled the door shut.
Obviously it needed more than a yank or two on the reset cord. Fixing it could wait until we returned from vacation.
I arrived home hours before him knowing that the garage door still did not work. With a dry summer, who needs a garage? I left the car in the driveway and unlocked the front door.
When he came home, he could not open the garage door with the electronic opener, so he went through the front door to the garage door, yanked on the reset cord and the door worked perfectly.
I know because he told me all about it.
“I tried that,” I said a bit resentfully.
Later that week, I sat down at the desktop computer to check my email and Facebook page. As always, our server worked for a few minutes and then logged itself offline. I sighed, turned off the equipment to reset the devices and logged back into everything.
It worked a while and again lost the connection.
I could have called the company, but I know they will just ask if I did absolutely everything we have to do every time the server disconnects itself. I know that the technician will close the conversation asking if we would like to have our phone service bundled with our Internet server. Why would I want to use an unreliable Internet server for my phone? I like getting phone calls and staying on the line with the caller. I’ll stick with that antique, reliable land line service for phone calls.
But I still use the local Internet provider with my fingers crossed in vain. This time the Internet did not reconnect. No matter how many times I turned everything off, it did not reconnect. I threw my hands in the air and decided to just check my email the next morning at work.
My husband came in late that evening with a visiting son. He wanted to use the Internet to check his mail. My husband turned on the computer, reset the devices and everything worked just fine and stayed online for the rest of the evening and the next.
I crossed my eyes and stared at the computer and the “genius” who fixed it.
“I tried that. It didn’t work,” I huffed.
The next day, I picked up my cell phone before I remembered it also did not work. I had dropped it, and the back had popped open, releasing the battery. I put it back together and the thing worked fine until it needed recharging. Then it did this weird beeping sound every few seconds until it reached its way to full power and it would not stay on more than a second. I tried turning it on several times. Nothing worked. I even took out the battery and put it back in place.
That did not work.
So as I prepared to go in town, I told my handyman I probably needed to buy a new phone.
“Did you check the battery?” he asked, working the cover loose. He took out the battery, looked at it and put it back into place. The phone worked just fine. He handed me the cell phone. “I don’t see a problem. It works fine.”
“I did that!” I protested, a bit peeved.
Sure I did it, just as I had tried to fix the garage door and the computer. Obviously I need to keep this guy around – he has the golden touch with simple electronic repairs and I do not.
(The inept Joan Hershberger is a staff writer at the News-Times.)