My dad is a gentle person, who is kind, and a little quiet. But, he inherited two bad traits from his father. He is easily frustrated and terrible at doing mechanical things.
When he was little, his dad tried to do something, like replace a rusted toilet seat, with a hammer and chisel, destroying the first toilet he and his wife had ever had together.
He never lived down the broken toilet seat, and his desire to DIY produced work equal to a lower rung DEI hire. It became a reason for his family to treat him with smug amusement. Even at the Bridge those scars did not heal.
Although he was never a dog person I do check on him from time to time. His birthday is next month and I asked him what he wanted. He thought about it and then said: ‘’Let’s mess with the boy.’’
I’m always up for mischief and knew my Grampy would enjoy seeing Daddy driven mad by a DIY project.
The first thing I did was kill the big mahawkin TV in the living room. I never liked it. It is too largefor the room. Unless they were hosting a film festival it was time for it to go.
When Daddy relaized it was expired he brought the TV from the bedroom into the living room. He carefully unplugged all the cables, and carried it into the living room. ‘’Watch this,’’ I said to Grampy, then wiggled my nose. The entire back of the TV changed.
‘’It’s all different,’’ Daddy told a skeptical Mommy.
‘Don’t be silly,’’ she said.
‘’I know I put the High definition cable here, and there isn’t a slot any longer,’’ Mommy rolled her eyes. ‘’And there is no place to plug the power cord to t*he TV.’’ Grampy and I snickered as it took him an hour to find the new slots.
Once Daddy had the substitute TY hooked up he realized the TV strand was now much too big for the TV so he went to slide it on to a smaller table when he realized the TV had to be unplugged to bne moved. This was more fun than a day treeing squirrels. We changed the back of the TV again, making him yell even louder as his blood pressure rose along with his frustration.
Finally, he got it done, and the TV hooked up. All he had to do was use the remote to check the TV. I almost felt bad because we had hid it behind the TV. It only took him an hour to find it.
Our masterpiece was knocking his glasses off the TV and onto the floor behind it. We hadn’t intended for them to fall into an open floor grate, or, for him, on the next day, to search for three hours for the glasses, before remembering the grate, and finding his glasses a foot down.
Two days later a new TV arrived and Daddy began to set it up. Grampy and I decided not to torment him (although it took some persuading to convince Grampy to stand down). I even helped him set it up, although there is only so much an angel can do with someone so mechanically inept.
No comments:
Post a Comment