Things Left Undone

Life is a delicate balancing act. Some days are easier to balance than others. I seem to pay for it mostly between the hours of 10 pm and 6 am. I've been having a lot of trouble sleeping lately. When I do sneak in a few hours of sleep, invariably I awaken with some task already on my mind. (That makes me wonder -- does my subconscious grind about deadlines and projects all night?)

In the Book of Common Prayer, there's a line that says we have left undone those things which we ought to have done and it made me think about all the stuff that I've left piling up in my life: applying to graduate school, keeping in touch with out-of-town friends, submitting feature articles for publication... I really felt like I needed to take some positive steps to snap myself out of this funk. Two things came to mind pretty quickly: a broken step and a leaky faucet. They both had been in need of attention for quite some time, but I had been putting them off because I'm not much of a handyman.

I started with the step. All I had to do was nail it down, right? So I nailed it down only to discover that it wobbled just as much as before. It turned out that the nail was too short. Whoopsie! So I went to the hardware store to buy some long screws to fix the step. I came back from the store, got out our electric drill only to discover that the screws were still too short. Darn. They looked so much longer in the store. After a second trip to the hardware store for the longest screws they sold, the step was secure! It wasn't pretty, the producers of Trading Spaces won't be calling me anytime soon, but at least I don't have to worry about someone breaking their neck on our property it anymore!

Pretty please with myself, I decided that it was time to take on my second project: the dripping faucet. Although I'm pretty hopeless around the house, even I know that a leaky faucet just needs the washer replaced. So I carefully removed the faucet to get the old one out. Everything was looking fine until -- WHOOSH -- a geyser of water shot out of the sink. This is the same exact plumbing problem we've all delighted to hundreds of times in countless Three Stooges shorts. The geyser was actually hitting the ceiling and then running down the walls to soak every single thing in our kitchen. Having lived through the experience, let me tell you it's a lot funnier when it's Curly's fault.

After a few more pointless trips to the hardware store for the wrong stuff, I finally discovered that the faucet had been damaged beyond repair in the tsunami. While I just stared at the carnage that was once my kitchen sink, Lamont snuck off to the other room and discretely phoned my mom's boyfriend, who installed a brand new faucet that afternoon.

I had lived with a drippy faucet for months because I was too embarrassed to let anyone know that I didn't have the faintest clue how to fix it. The wobbly step should have been taken care of months before, but I was afraid I'd mess it up. But in just a few hours, both problems were solved. It made me think. Were either of these projects worth months of worrying? I don't think so. It felt good to have them finally taken care of.

It goes without saying that I slept pretty good last night.