Now I’m the chick who fixes shit. How do these things get started?
First one of our toilets broke. It wouldn’t flush. I found the office admin hanging a sign on the bathroom door saying “Out of Order,” and she told me the toilet was broken. I went to have a look—the flush lever was broken; it was so old it had rusted through.
Hell, I’m a homeowner, I’ve fixed harder problems than that with my own toilet. I went to the hardware store, spent five bucks on a new flush lever, and installed it the next day. There was no sense of altruism here, it was the bathroom I used.
A couple of months later, I noticed that whenever someone used the other bathroom, I’d hear the clank of the lid on the toilet tank. For a week or so I didn’t really put much significance to it; I figured it was a poorly-fitted lid and it was shifting every time someone stood up. Then one day I happened to use it myself, and I discovered its flush lever had broken also—people were taking off the tank lid so they could flush the toilet.
Another five bucks at the hardware store, and I fixed another toilet. One of the ladies came in just as I was finishing, and warned me, “This one is broken.”
“Not any more,” I told her, replacing the tank lid.
One day last week, I came in to find the main door’s knob missing. As in gone, completely off. Apparently the night before, it had come off in someone’s hand as she was trying to leave.
“We’re going to send Sparky* out to get a new one, and then Bertha can install it,” said my supervisor to the world at large.
Apparently if you fix a couple of flush levers, you get a reputation for knowing how to fix shit.
(Not a problem, though—Sparky and I installed the doorknob with no problem.)
*Our office admin—not her real name
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