HandyMom
I think I have unraveled the mystery of the self-locking doorknob. This was an issue with the bathroom door a couple weeks back and yesterday I couldn't open the cellar door when I was trying to bring a random, useless door screen I had found in the coat closet, downstairs. I was turning the handle but nothing was happening.
Me: "What the..."
David: "What is it mommy?"
Me: "I can't get the basement door open. It's like it's locked or something."
David: "What? Oh NO! Now we can't get into the basement! Now daddy can't play his music! Now we can't use the washer, now we can't..." David inherited the deep anxiety gene from both his folks. Poor kid.
Me: "It's okay. I'm just going to take it off and see what's wrong."
Sofi chimes in: "What you doin', mommy?"
Me: (getting out my flat head) "I'm taking this doorknob off to try and fix it."
I unscrew the knob and remove the trim and Sofia, alarmed, cries: "Oh, you boke it, mommy! It boke now!! Oh nooooo..."
Me: "No, no, it's fine. I'm taking it apart. I'll put it back together in a sec."
Sofia: "Oh, you boke it. It all boked now." She scrunches up her face and does her mock, sobbing sound that she makes when she thinks she ought to find something sad. It sounds kind of like "ooooo, hoo-hoo, heeewwww..." and trails off when she runs out of breath.
Clearly the kids have no faith in my self-taught tool skills. They've no idea that I used to help assemble stage sets back in college and at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Sure, the flight of steps I worked on for that Olympia Dukakis play may not have been structurally sound, but she'd been warned not to walk up them too quickly. Not my fault she couldn't follow stage directions.
Anyway, I take it apart and find that the screw that holds the knob to the spindle wasn't catching on the flat part, so I set it so that it would attach correctly and put it back together. You'd think we'd just won the candy lottery or something to see how happy the kids were.
"Now we can go in the basement!! Yay!" David shouts. Sofia does a little "We Did It" Dora dance. Yes. I'm thrilled, too.
So ends another day for HandyMom. Who knows what amazing adventure awaits our hero tomorrow.
Me: "What the..."
David: "What is it mommy?"
Me: "I can't get the basement door open. It's like it's locked or something."
David: "What? Oh NO! Now we can't get into the basement! Now daddy can't play his music! Now we can't use the washer, now we can't..." David inherited the deep anxiety gene from both his folks. Poor kid.
Me: "It's okay. I'm just going to take it off and see what's wrong."
Sofi chimes in: "What you doin', mommy?"
Me: (getting out my flat head) "I'm taking this doorknob off to try and fix it."
I unscrew the knob and remove the trim and Sofia, alarmed, cries: "Oh, you boke it, mommy! It boke now!! Oh nooooo..."
Me: "No, no, it's fine. I'm taking it apart. I'll put it back together in a sec."
Sofia: "Oh, you boke it. It all boked now." She scrunches up her face and does her mock, sobbing sound that she makes when she thinks she ought to find something sad. It sounds kind of like "ooooo, hoo-hoo, heeewwww..." and trails off when she runs out of breath.
Clearly the kids have no faith in my self-taught tool skills. They've no idea that I used to help assemble stage sets back in college and at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Sure, the flight of steps I worked on for that Olympia Dukakis play may not have been structurally sound, but she'd been warned not to walk up them too quickly. Not my fault she couldn't follow stage directions.
Anyway, I take it apart and find that the screw that holds the knob to the spindle wasn't catching on the flat part, so I set it so that it would attach correctly and put it back together. You'd think we'd just won the candy lottery or something to see how happy the kids were.
"Now we can go in the basement!! Yay!" David shouts. Sofia does a little "We Did It" Dora dance. Yes. I'm thrilled, too.
So ends another day for HandyMom. Who knows what amazing adventure awaits our hero tomorrow.
posted by Kristen @ 2:40 PM
2 Comments:
At 6:11 PM,
Anonymous said…
That's a great story, and brings back so many memories! You see, there is a nail in the MCLA stage, downstage left, that I pounded into the stage specifically, as my legacy. No one "officially" knows about that nail, but I remember it well, and think of it occasionally with a smile (like right now.)
I had my share of mishaps at WTF myself (1994), but none like my fellow costume intern. You see, one day, she confessed her recurring nightmare to the rest of the costume department staff about having one of her costumes fall of an actor onstage. She went on and on about how that was her biggest fear. Of course we all laughed it off. Until a few nights later, during a preview night, when her very own handiwork, a period full-length skirt, fell off of Gwyneth Paltrow during a performance...
I bet that intern has never fully recovered...
At 9:02 PM,
Kristen said…
That's funny. It's very possible that Ms. Paltrow lost some weight between rehearsals, so it most likely was not your friend's error. Seemed like the actors were always having to have their costumes adjusted and taken in or taken out. Yes, I too have some crazy stories, most of which are not appropriate for this blog!
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