EDitorial ± 26-Jul-2004

Fixing A Hole

Me, I like to get jobs done. Amend and renew car insurance? Bish. Post cheque to Inland Revenue on receipt of final distraint reminder? Bosh. Make a will? Heck, 66.6 per cent isn't bad. So on Saturday lunchtime, faced with a loo seat that (a) wobbles from side to side and (b) has to be forced down when the lid is raised, I became the existentialist hero and acted.

As much as I both want and need to use the facilities now, I thought, I'll hang on until this job is jobbed. Won't take more than 20 minutes. Ha! And laying down my Word magazine on the toddler step — note to self: why is this still there? — I darted under the stairs to fetch my natty red toolbox.

Given that the worlds of EFB and DIY rarely intersect, you might be surprised how plentiful and heavy is my box of tools. Explanation: I'm endeavouring to stay one step ahead of my four year old, equipment-wise.

Half an hour later and I've applied my one-stop solution: lashings of WD40. That smell is wafting downstairs while I wrestle with a wrench trying to unscrew a thread that's awash with lube.

An hour gone and I'm removing the fixings that attach the lid and seat, cursing some past-their-best crosshead screws as my screwdriver fails, like myself, to get a grip.

Ninety minutes elapsed and having tracked down some replacements, admittedly not countersunk, events turn typically flatpack as I encounter Ingvar's Law:

If it can be assembled incorrectly, it will be

4pm, and after 2.5 hours of directing the kids to the downstairs toilet (we do have another one, you know?!), everything is finally hunky dory. Job's a good 'un!

If You Take Away With You Nothing Else

Carry on up the khazi:

  1. take your best estimate, triple it and add ten minutes
  2. lucky I had one of those things you can adjust to grip other things
  3. he who dies with the most tools wins

Be seeing you!

Ed