Sunday, February 1, 2015

Do It Your Own Damn Self

Recently, this past winter, during an extended "temperature is this but really feels like...whoa! THIS??" cold snap, I hit rock bottom and decided to replace all my 80's-looking doorknobs. ('Cuz everybody KNOWS anything 80's is soooooo passe...just think how embarrassed we will all be when someone comes up to us in about 20 years and says.. "hey, the 20teens called and they want their flat screens and iPhones back.")

Anyway, I stupidly asked the Home Depot (just send those checks right 'chere, Home Depot - I am a'bloggin' away on y'all) person if it was difficult to change door knobs and he said, and I quote, "no problem, two screws, and uh, 'more saving, more doing,' have a nice day."  So, I thought even a novice DIY-er like myself who knows little more than "righty-tighty, lefty loosey" should be able to knock it out in my remaining lifetime.

Boy, was I optimistic.

First of all, the doorknob instructions people, reading glasses people, and Rosetta Stone people are in cahoots with each other because, well, you know....tiny print, many languages....blah, blah, blah.  Also, researched the word "cahoots" for about 5 minutes because, well, you know, I can google like nobody's business, but, truthfully, word origin...not that interesting or funny.

But the helpful doorknob people made one mistake, in letters I could actually read, by posting a toll-free (Is anything really toll-free anymore?  It's all just minutes now, right?  Does anyone ever say anymore, "Don't talk too long it's LONG DISTANCE!!!???" But I digress...) Help Line!!!  My favorite thing!!!  Because I will not waste even one second trying to figure out a-n-y-thing if there is someone there to tell me how to do it!!!  I am a people person!!  I can ask question after question until I get what I want!!  Don't you want to meet me??

Before I had the first old doorknob off, I had talked to about 90% of the helpful help line staff but my favorites were Angie, Mitch, and James.  At one point, Angie got a little testy when she heard me hammering for no apparent reason and told me in no uncertain terms, "You're not hammering on the latch mechanism, are you???"  I'm not proud of the fact that I had to lie to the Ang-ster.

By the second doorknob, they started answering the phone with, "What is it now, Terry?"  Which I really appreciated as personalized service.  I even called once when Angie, sounding a bit flustered, said Mitch had just played a practical joke on her, and she was distracted.  All I heard in the background was muffled laughing from James and Mitch and something that sounded like, "She's your problem now, Angie-girl, you lost the bet!"  Such a fun group.

Anyway all the doorknobs are done, Mitch, Angie, and James are now followers of my blog, (your loss, Home Depot), and I am looking for the next project...what do you say, Loews...you wanna "build something together and never stop improving" with me?

No comments:

Post a Comment