My Dad Puts the “D” in DIY Disaster
My Dad has always fancied himself a capable handyman.
It’s a belief that is a by-product of his can-do attitude, his arrogance, his naiveté, and his overpowering sense of duty. Doing has been how he’s shown love.
My siblings and I measured each do-it-yourself (DIY) project in swear words — the more profanities uttered, the more we avoided the scene at any cost.
Small tasks like installing batteries or hooking up our Atari system would elicit a few shits. Larger appliances would call for hundreds of “Mother Fuckers!” and other seemingly useful swearing.
So when Dad announced one wintry morning that he was going to replace our broken garage door opener, we all freaked (silently).
Mom initiated the usual, futile script.
“Pat, it’s freezing,” Mom said. “I don’t want you spending hours in the garage in the freezing cold. Let’s get it done quickly with a qualified installer.”
“A qualified installer?” Dad retorted. “Puh-leeze. Do you know how much they charge? I can absolutely install a new opener. It can’t be that hard.”
“Pat — ”
“Lucy, it’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”
The next day, he descended on the garage, new garage door system in one hand, toolbox in the other, and in his mouth, his battered brown pipe stuck together with masking tape. The first “Damnit!” and “Shit!” hit the air within an hour, prompting our stomachs to bubble like fizzy pop drinks.
When the music was displaced with thunderous banging and vociferous fits of “Son of a bitch!”, and “You asshole!”, that was our cue to make ourselves scarce — no one wanted to be drafted into helping Dad.
The Reveal
It was early evening when Dad made the elated call from the garage, announcing that it was time to come down for the big reveal. Filing into the garage, we saw the garage door in a closed state, and we immediately took this as a positive sign. Dad, positioned at the back wall, waited for all of us to take our places in the middle of the damp room; he wanted us to absorb the full effect of his triumph.
We heard a click. My stomach and fingers began to tingle as I watched the garage door begin a slow, fluid ascent to the fully open position.
Dad drew out the moment. Relishing the sight of the door completely ajar, he lovingly filled his pipe bowl with his cheap Captain Black tobacco. He placed the pipe in his mouth, lit the bowl, and waited for the sweet burning smell to waft past our noses. Then, with an exaggerated inhale, he gingerly tapped the button and exhaled a loud “Ah” as the door rolled down.
Our eyes grew with anticipation as the door trundled ever closer to the ground. But then it began to whine. The left side suddenly stopped moving while the right end of the door plunged to the ground, leaving the door resting at an abnormal, 45-degree-angle.
No one stirred. We darted our eyes from side to side, trying to get a glimpse of each other’s faces for a sign of what to do. We knew that the wishbone vein in Dad’s forehead would be an angry, pulsating rope. And then, we felt the slight breeze of something whizzing over our heads. Dad’s dark blue packet of tobacco slammed into the garage door and dropped to the cement floor. He made the first move.
“Son of a bitch!” he screamed. “Everybody OUT!”
We scattered like spiders in search of the safest place to hide. And Dad continued to hit the garage door button, thinking he’d get a different outcome each time. The profanity continued.
Fifteen minutes later we heard Mom return to the garage.
“For Christ's sake, Pat, give it a rest,” she advised. “The door isn’t working and you pushing the button a hundred times isn’t going to fix it.”
“Well, God damnit, I don’t understand what’s wrong with it,” Dad fired back. “I want to figure this bastard out.”
“It’s freezing,” she said, calmly and slowly. “Let’s leave it for tonight.”
Dad sucked in a deep breath and muttered, with utter discontent, “O-kayyyy.”
Door vs Dad Part 2
The next morning we awoke to find Dad jogging in place in our bright living room. He was clad in his hideous, holey gray sweatsuit and clamped to his head were his jumbo, 1970s headphones. The long coil of the thick, black audio cable connected to the turntable was bouncing to his rhythmic feet, and his hands were flailing as he played the air drums to the Electric Light Orchestra’s Roll Over Beethoven.
Seeing Dad return to his normal winter-workout routine made us think that he had heeded Mom’s advice to recruit professional help. We were mistaken.
After his workout, he descended into the garage again. Five minutes later we heard the sound of metal slamming into the concrete floor and shrieks of “You fucker!”
As usual, the DIY project had become personal.
But then, to our surprise, Dad admitted defeat. Exasperated, and still too cheap to call in a professional, he marched over to Mr. Hall, our neighbor across the street, and asked for help.
A soft-spoken, bespectacled man with a prominent belly, Mr. Hall was the opposite of Dad. He possessed confidence with hand tools, power tools and deductive reasoning.
With Mr. Hall serving as both taskmaster and moral compass, the scene in the garage was decidedly more efficient and civilized. In less than two hours, the job was complete without so much as a “Damn.”
Feeling much more confident in the outcome, we eagerly accepted Dad’s invitation for the garage-door revival. We took our usual places and waited for the show to begin. Dad, being generous in spirit, deferred to Mr. Hall, allowing him to control the raising and lowering of the door.
We heard the familiar click, and the door slowly yawned to the top, and we held our breath on its descent. No one was more pleased than we when the door made a smooth landing on the ground.
We exploded into fervent clapping, shouting “Well done!” and profuse “Thanks!” to our neighbor. We were relieved that the ordeal was over and harmony was restored.
That is, until Dad dragged our lawnmower out of the garage and announced he was going to fix that bladed menace.
