Ms. Fix-It

This is one of those days when annoying but necessary aspects of everyday life conspire to remind us how vulnerable we are to basic infrastructure failure. To sum it up, today I have dealt with a phone outage, replaced a toilet seat, changed two furnace filters and most dauntingly, put a new dead bolt in the front door. And yes, I also helped my mother survive a catastrophic moment (so she thought), when a large container of chicken soup I made yesterday slipped from her fingers and exploded across the kitchen floor. The first hint: On awakening I dealt with the telephone company for the second day about our service, which included no dial tone yesterday but had evolved by 8 a.m. today to crackly static. Calling what used to be Sprint but is now Century Link about phone service involves a humiliating series of "press 1" and "press star," one of the most frustrating series of automated responses I have encountered in customer relations, with the possible exception of those companies that have outsourced their customer service to India, prisons, Mexico or outer reaches of the universe. After I managed to communicate through the static to learn that we were on the repair list, I replaced two furnace filters as well as disconnected a toilet seat that has been biting me on the butt for weeks now. The new toilet seat has been awaiting my resolve, which wavers when I recall the last time I tried to do this particular chore. It turned out to be as difficult as I remembered, until I reached below the bowl, which turned my insides out (I have a weird hernia) and removed the plastic screws by hand rather than making futile gestures with the screwdriver with an extra-large tip, which I had previously been attempting in total futility. All was accomplished in time for the detritus to be collected by the weekly garbage service. I had managed to communicate with them yesterday. I discovered the lack of dial tone when hoping for a pickup, but later managed to leave a message by cell phone. Making sure the old toilet seat and furnace filters were in the garbage can before the Monday pickup was my first triumph of the day. A subsequent chore was more daunting. We had ths same deadbolt and lower doorknob lock on the front door that were there when we moved in. The deadbolt in particular has been quite squirrelly lately, and while I have been able to lock the deadbolt when leaving for extended periods through experimentation, I have not been able to lock it from the inside for some time when we retire for the night. It has been nagging me as a possible problem one of these days, when I will not be able to enter no matter how hard I try my little key twists. This last Sunday, Mom came home early from church not feeling well, and was unable to unlock the front door for some time. I was on a shopping excursion to Cascade Locks, and when I arrived home, she was not happy. Monday, I checked the phone book and determined that only two companies in the entire area offer residential service, one in Hood River and the other in The Dalles. This began to sound expensive. Calling the local hardware store evoked the information that while new lock sets and rekeying are available there, installation is up to the purchaser. I do not have the lower knob lock installed yet --- deadbolt installation included removal of the previous lock, which had no screws, chiseling of wood around the sides of the front plate and two new screw holes. Suffice it to say that after tool experimentation, measuring and summoning reserves of contemplative powers I didn't know I had, the top lock is installed. It works. The pot roast is in the oven. I am signing out.