Mr. Fix-It

Certain recent events in my marriage have transported my recollections back to that old Cosby Show episode where Cliff says to Theo, "Son, get me my tool belt," and Clair (Cliff's wife) and Theo exchange looks of dread and panic at the prospect of Cliff using his sledgehammer on the bathroom wall. I remember that while watching that particular episode for the first time in the late eighties, my mother snickered and pointed to my father as Cliff strapped on his belt, a belt comprised of all sorts of odd-looking contraptions perfect for exacerbating household repair issues.

I am rapidly discovering what my mother already knew. There is a little Cliff Huxtable in all men.

In order to illustrate my point, let me introduce you to my husband’s alter ego, Mr. Fix-It.

During the summer, our garage door began making a strange fog-horn-like sound whenever it was lowered or raised. Soon the garage door refused to move at all but still insisted on making the sound every time we would press the button. My husband, my Mr. Fix-It husband, reticent to call an actual garage door repair person, spent a good part of a Saturday afternoon “fixing” the garage door. According to Mr. Fix-It, only one side of the door was broken, and it appeared to be a simple fix, although it did take him most of Saturday afternoon to accomplish this.

About a week later, I opened the garage door, only to be greeted by the same fog-horn sound now accompanied by a crunching noise that sounded like the garage door was being run through a meat grinder. The door opened, so I didn’t think anything of it; however, the attempt to close it failed as I was pulling out of the driveway.

Mr. Fix-It spent a long time in the garage that evening, eventually coming to the conclusion that it was broken, this time on both sides. After a night of deliberation, he decided to call a garage door repair person who fixed it in fifteen minutes.

That same summer, Mr. Fix-It emerged again when he decided it was time to replace one of the broken heads on our sprinkler system. He spent yet another Saturday afternoon in the backyard before realizing he had bought the wrong size extender.

Upon this revelation, Mr. Fix-It entered the office, sopping wet, laughing with amusement. “I guess I did take a shower this morning after all . . . in the sprinklers – ha ha!”

That evening, while I sat on the living room couch watching a Great Performances special, Mr. Fix-It sat beside me fiddling with the broken sprinkler head and a screwdriver. He had decided to fix the old head before installing a new extender in the correct size.

“Isn’t that a ratchet sound?” he said when the sprinkler head emitted an unpleasant grating noise underneath the screwdriver’s rotation.

A few minutes later, he set the screwdriver and sprinkler head on the coffee table.

“I think I stripped it completely.” It was time to buy a new head.

Right before school started, I informed Dan that my car blinker was not working anymore. Enter Mr. Fix-It.

“That should be easy to fix.”

So he spent the first hour in the garage, taking apart the steering column, diagnosing the problem. When I asked him what was wrong, he replied, “I don’t know, but it’s broken.”

An hour or so later, Mr. Fix-It tracked me down inside the house, quite proud, holding the blinker and window washer switches in his hand.

“I’m going to fix it,” he promised.

He worked for another hour with the contents of his toolbox and random car parts spread out on the kitchen table.

Eventually, he did put the steering column back together. And excitedly, he demonstrated the properly working blinker, to which I proclaimed him a genius. A few days later, I discovered that my horn was no longer working.

“What do you want, a working blinker or a working horn?” Dan said. “It’s not that important for you to have a horn anyway. When do you use it?”

Needless to say, my car still does not have a functioning horn.

The other day, one of my 4th grade students brought in a toy car remote control. He announced that he was going to take it apart for talent day because that was his talent - he was good at taking things apart.

“Do you put them back together, and do they work after you put them back together?” I asked.

He nodded.

“Well then you’re one step ahead of my husband.”