BerthaBlog

Shortly after I started work, the office admin ordered a stapler and staple-puller for me. Because I didn’t have one of my own and always had to borrow one.

I put my name on both of them, so if they wandered off they would be returned to my desk. Whenever I need to staple something for my supervisor, rather than use hers, I walk the dozen or so feet back to my desk to get my stapler. At first she would offer her own, but by now she knows I like to use mine.

I was telling Alpha Geek about this little idiosyncrasy. “Whenever she tried to offer her stapler,” I told him, “I always wanted to say, ‘This is my stapler. There are many like it, but this one is mine.'”

“Without me, my stapler is useless,” said Alpha Geek. “Without my stapler, I am useless.”

“This is my stapler, this is my gun…!” I added.

The kids just stared blankly at both of us.

So my shed door is broken. It’s very difficult to get into my shed.

All my yard tools are in the shed. My lawn mower, my hedge clippers, my weed killer, et cetera. Not to mention the bikes.

So I called a local handyman to see if he could fix the shed. He came out and had a look at it. He asked if there were any other improvement projects that needed doing, because they have a minimum service charge and it hardly seemed worth it for such a small job. He described his estimate of what would be done, and said it should be fairly easy for myself and the boys to do it. Then he said he’d e-mail me an estimate on the job and left.

Never heard back from him. I suspect he feels my little shed door is too small a job to bother with.

Sure, the boys and I probably could fix the door. But between my full-time job, my certification classes, and general home upkeep responsibilities, I kind of feel like my allotted obligation hours are full. I don’t want to cut into my “now I can do something I actually like” time with a project that is probably going to be annoying and tedious and take longer than planned, as they tend to do.

So I called another handyman service company. He came out today, had a look, said he didn’t have enough time to fix it today but he can come back Wednesday. He gave me an estimate, I said let’s do it, and we’re good to go.

I mentioned to The Director that the first handyman was probably shooting himself in the foot by dismissing our little job. Over the next few years we’ll probably be calling on a handyman to fix a lot of the neglected issues around the house, especially once we get my car paid off next spring. So if we like the guy who does the shed, he’s likely to get bigger jobs in the future.