Random Ramblings of a Reluctant Blogger

This is not a Hitchcockian murder mystery. Although it does involve a bathroom and a washbasin, there isn’t any blood dripping suddenly and all that macabre cinematic effects. But, does the destruction of ego fall in the category of murder.? Maybe.

Anyway, to continue, all the action happened thanks to an offending faucet fixed in the washbasin. It was one of those tallish steel faucets with a handle, a small protruding thin rounded extension. Easy to use as all one has to do is to turn the extension, with minimum of force. True to its claim, the faucet  worked fine for a long time, till one fine day, I unconsciously exerted some extra force and the extension gave way. Fortunately it happened as I closed the tap.

I immediately tried the never-fail technique _ Fevicol. I had a mid size bottle and thought instead of pouring out the liquid,  I will dip the offending extension and fix it. But much like in the advertisement, in which the aliens are pulled back to the earth,  the extension disappeared  into the bottle. There was no way I would empty a whole bottle to take out the extension. So, I tried  a few other jugads but none worked effectively. By now my wife, who had been patient till now, instructed that I call the plumber and change the faucet.

And it was at this moment, dear friends,  when nostalgia came barging in and woke up the dormant ego. Now, in my growing years these small repairs were all managed at home. Almost every household had a couple of spanners of various sizes, a monkey wrench, a hammer, a tester, and screwdrivers, again of various sizes, all in an essential tool box. Leaky faucets, taps, changing bulbs, fixing up fuses and all sorts of repairs were handled expertly at home. And eager and curious that I was, I never missed an opportunity to enrich my knowledge of how things work.

The road of knowledge is bumpy and experience essentially grows with mishaps and setbacks. Like the time when I decided to fix an iron box. I promptly opened it up and those days the electric iron box had a sheet of mica and all I had to do was to replace the faulty sheet. Even those sheets were available in the local electrical store. Soon everything was put in place and as soon as I switched it on there was a blackout. Candles were then brought and since I had the knowledge of fixing fuses the matter was  resolved.

The one thing I learnt then was to not try out my electrical experiments at night. Table fans, radios, transistors and many battery operated toys have met their end at my hands. I did a lot of damage but I also fixed things successfully. Without bragging I would say I had a 60 to 65 percent success.

My ego now challenged, I decided to replace the faucet myself. A new one was bought and I set about it. One of the troubles was the lack of proper tools. Having given up experiments a long time back, all that remained with me was a small hammer, a screwdriver and a plier. And the faucet was fixed in such a way that it needed a lot of dexterity just to reach out to the screws which were hidden below the washbasin. Which meant I had to use a lot of ingenuity to hold the faucet even while I tried to unscrew it. With nothing working, I then used the screwdriver as a wedge and carefully hammered it. And this then was the first time that I saw a screwdriver breaking in half! One half firmly clung to the faucet and the other half launched itself into the air and knocked off the moneyplant jar. That came crashing down and I expected a violent reaction from my wife, but she had given up on me. 

That  however, made me more determined and I transformed into a contortionist and launched myself into an ashtavakra yogic pose, plier in one hand the faucet in the other. Patiently and slowly I managed to unhinge the faucet. Fixing the new one now was a breeze. The catch, however, was I could not stop the drip. I attempted several turns and twists without any success. By now I was exhausted and hungry. I told my wife I will set things right after a nice siesta.

Post my rather longish nap I went to the faucet and to my pleasant surprise the thing had fixed itself. No drips and all working fine. I proudly then announce to my wife my handiwork. “Yes, It’s fixed,” my wife said. “I called in the plumber while you slept and got it fixed”, she announced (did I notice a taunt in that tone?). “And”, she continued as she handed me  my phone, “I have entered the plumber’s name in your phone. Check in M.”  Thinking his name would start with M, I checked. And there  it was, entered as ME, with plumber in brackets! “Henceforth,” my wife stated as she sashayed past me, “dial M for plumber.”