The Son My Father Never Had

My father could figure out how anything worked.  He could take things apart and put them back together.  He could fix anything.  In other words, he was a man.

To his disappointment I was his firstborn, and a girl.  And then he had another girl.  He didn't think he was disappointed when I came along.  I was pleasant enough, and I didn't give him a hard time till I was a teenager.  My sister doubled down in the rebellion thing.  So eleven years after I was born, he admitted failure and tried again, ending up with a third daughter.

But I was the first.  And my father dealt with it as best he could, but when it came to passing down his talents, I was out of the loop.  I will take some responsibility for that; I can't even imagine trying to learn how to use a lathe, or watch him repair a car.  In my defense, he would typically make my mother stand by him as he worked on the car, so she could listen to him curse when he couldn't get the damned thing loose.  This is probably where I got inspired to join the women's liberation movement.

I was pretty good at things like gardening, and learned to put wallpaper up in my first house, but whenever something broke, I wimped out and called for my husband.  And then, when I was into my forties, and decided to leave my husband, with my two kids, and relocated to a place far, far away, I decided I wanted to buy a "fixer-upper" and then fix it up.  Fortunately, someone talked some sense into me, and I ended up with a pretty, fairly new and modest double-wide.

I did go at learning how to do man-stuff the first year or two.  My husband, good-hearted soul that he is, bought me a drill, a tool-box, and a bunch of other things so I could learn to be a handy-person.  There's a toilet paper holder next to the toilet that wobbles, but damn it, I did it.  I try to avoid using most of those tools these days, because it tends to take me longer to remember how they work than it would take for a guy to fix whatever is broke.  And I have better things to do with whatever time I have left.

Yes indeed, by virtue of age and accompanying wisdom, I'm aware that I have that fear of mechanical objects that women of my generation have.  I'll find someone to do the work if I can, but if I have to do it myself -- and I'm assured by all that I can do it -- it takes a lot of stamina, determination, and internet research before I tackle a project.

My latest adventure in the work of home repair was in the fall, when flames were shooting up from my old grill far beyond what I thought was acceptable.  I bought new briquets.  When I went to replace the briquets I found that what's called the "drip vaporRISER bar" (I may not be handy, but I do compulsively save user manuals) was rusted and needed to be replaced.  When I bought the part I needed and eventually attempted to replace the old one, I discovered that the part underneath it was rusted.  So before I ended up taking a couple of years rebuilding the grill piece by piece, I decided I needed a new one.

When I first moved out here, I was terrified to light the grill, but I really enjoy eating grilled food, so I forced myself to learn.  I wasn't going to let my fear of putting together new shiny objects keep me from getting a grill.  So I shopped and discovered that there are these neat portable grills that people use for picnics and tailgating.  Then I researched those little teensy gas canisters.  Did you know it's cheaper to just refill those little bottles from a 20 lb. tank?

That part of the adventure ended when I learned that all you have to do is turn the big tank upside down to refill the little one.

Then I went to Lowe's and looked at the little grills, and I asked all the right questions.  Like, can I just set this on the concrete porch?  And can I really just use a 20 lb. tank?  And, is there anything else I need to know?

Men will always give you the answer you want.  Which often means they don't know much more than you do.  But I was happy enough and bought the neat little grill.

I left it sitting in the box for quite a few days, and observed it. After I had gotten used to it, I took it out of the box.  After a couple more hours, I looked at the instruction manual. These are all written by men, and often translated from another language.  Even if they aren't they are written by men who have always been better at mechanics than English.

But I did ascertain that the grill needed to be elevated, no more than 36 inches, from the ground.  I thought about calling Lowe's and yelling at the guy that told me I could put it right on the concrete, but determined that I could work this problem out.  It never said how low it could be, and I was not going to go out and buy a table.  So I ruminated about it, strolled around the house, and found a piece of furniture that was made of fairly sturdy wood in my son's room.  Since he doesn't live here anymore, I figured he wouldn't miss it. It was kind of a narrow book case that would be perfect on its side.  I emptied it out, and then took a couple more days to consult with people about whether this would actually work.  And then I got around to actually assembling the grill.  And I set it on the sideways bookcase.  In the house.  Because I still wasn't sure it would work.

It looked pretty good.  I took some pictures:

Then I let a few more days go by.  Now I was worrying about transferring the propane tank from my old grill to the new one.  Yesterday I took some lamb chops out of the freezer.  And today I took the canister off the old grill and with very little difficulty attached it to the new one.

I was told in no uncertain terms, by the manual and by my sister, that I needed to run a soapy solution around the connection to make sure there were no leaks.  Apparently I should have been doing that every year.  Oh, well.  Even though I was assured this was easy, I went to YouTube and found a video.  The first video said I needed to check all the connections.  The second one said I only needed to check the connection at the propane tank.  So I went with that one.  No leaks.

Then it got cloudy, and cold, and windy.

Having reached the limits of even my ability to procrastinate, I thought to myself, hell, the worst that could happen is it could all blow up.  And then I went to my more reasonable fallback philosophy:  There are a lot stupider people than me that do this all the time.  That thought has helped me face a lot of man-stuff hurdles.

So, with the wind whipping up, I fired up my new grill.  I wasn't sure it lit, because I am always convinced that any appliance I try to get to work will not work.  That hasn't been true a lot of the time, it just feels true.  But I turned it off, walked around for a bit, and then came back to it and tried again.  Newfangled thing, I couldn't see a flame.  But I didn't turn it off immediately, and actually sniffed for gas, and found there was no gas smell, and put my hand near the grill and felt heat.  This just might mean success.

But I had to wait 30 minutes before I could grill the first time.  And I watched the wind whip up, sure that the fire would blow out, or the grill would topple over the bench, or some other unforeseen stupid thing would happen.

But it didn't.  I actually cooked my lamb chops.  They were quite nice.

I don't think my father would have been proud of me, because to him it was nothing.  But, having been raised a girl in the 60's, let me tell you it was a damned big deal.