It drives me nuts – probably a lot more than it should – when stuff breaks. Well, sometimes I just take a “it happens” attitude, but if it’s something I really need to fix, then I resent needing to spend the time to fix or replace it. And when several things break in succession, well, that’s obviously worse.
A couple of weeks ago I had the classic moment when I realized I’d left my pedometer in my shorts – which were currently in the washing machine. Once it dried out it seemed to be working again, but in trying to get it all back together I lost one of the nuts which actually holds the battery compartment in place. I couldn’t figure out where it went (probably fell behind the bookcase), so I finally gave up and just ordered a new pedometer, as the old one was, well, getting pretty old anyway. On the bright side, the pedometer Debbi and I each use is down to $24 at Amazon.com.
Several months ago, the zipper on the bag I take everywhere with my laptop and books and such broke. Well, the bag has, like, 12 pockets, so it was only one zipper – but it was the one for the laptop pocket. And, the zipper itself is fine, it’s actually just the handle which snapped in half. The fix? Take some ribbon and tie it through the remainder of the handle, and voila! New handle! Well, new handle until the remainder of the old handle decides to just fall off one day, taking the ribbon with it, and probably turning into a cat toy. So now I need to figure out a new way to get the ribbon on there, without it slipping through the gap the old handle likely slipped through (which I probably widened in my failed attempt to replace the old handle with a handle taken from a discarded suitcase).
And most recently, today I was biking in to work, and during my water break decided to raise my seat again. It keeps slipping down from the most comfortable position, so I’ve been raising it about once a week, which involves loosening the screws which keep it in place, and then tightening them again. This time, metal fatigue took it toll and the screw snapped in half, so the seat wouldn’t stay in place. Fortunately (?) I’d stopped in front of my friends Susan & Subrata‘s house, so I sent Susan a text message, and 30 seconds later I hear her yell, “Come on in!” So she gave me a lift home and I showered and started my day over again.
I’ll have to go buy a new screw for the bike, and I wonder if I should buy a new seat as well, in the hopes that a new one won’t keep slipping down. On the other hand, given that I seem to have one major failure in my bike every year, maybe I should just buy a new bike.
Sigh.
The upside is that S&S’s son Ajay took his first steps over the weekend, and I got to play and laugh with him while Susan was getting ready to drive me home. He’s a cute little guy.
Anyway, now that I’ve got all this out of my system, I can work on getting stuff repaired.