Handy Man

Had I spent only two weeks with mom, one of which was in Florida, I would not have had time to do chores around the house. The two extra weeks have allowed me to:
• Restack her empty firewood rack in the garage after finding a guy who sells aged wood.
• Buy a digital clock to replace the talking clock that loudly tells you what time it is, all frigging night long. Mom liked the clock because it lets her know what time it is without turning on the light. The new clock projects the time onto the ceiling. Strangely, she’s sleeping better now.
• Buy an electric kettle that boils water very quickly for mom’s frequent cups of tea. Her old range-top kettle required her to squeeze the handle of the kettle so the spout lid opened, allowing her to pour. Her arthritis makes this job very painful, especially with a kettle full of boiling water. The electric kettle has no such torture device and is lighter and faster.
• Clean the (disgusting) filter on her vacuum cleaner, meaning it actually has suction power now.
• Empty out a few cupboards and take a trunk load of stuff to Goodwill. I’d like to empty out a lot more cupboards, but she won’t let me.
• Take a trunk load of clothes to a domestic abuse shelter.
• Set up the voice mail on her cell phone.
• Fix a cracked clear plastic crisper drawer in the fridge. Kenmore wanted close to $100 for a new drawer, including postage. I was able to put enough pressure on two planes of hard plastic to pop them back into alignment. Then some duck tape and, voila.
• Figure out how to use her TV remote to get program information, so she can see a schedule on her TV screen. The guide you get in the mail has something like 8 point font.
• Set up a birdfeeder on a table on her second-story back deck. She can throw bird seed out of the kitchen window onto a table covered with a tarp. So in the winter, she can feed birds without going outside.

I’ve had to take up my game in figuring stuff out. I’ve also sought help at the Geeks and WalMart (for her tracker phone). But I’m pretty happy with my performance as a handy man. I’m also distressed by how hard it is to grow old. Even at my age, I struggle with directions for things like the digital clock. The print in the instruction manual is teeny tiny and it is very poorly written. And I’m hopeless with computers and cell phones. Not sure how I will function in my 80s. I wish purveyors of products realized that we aren’t all gadget crazed teenagers and we need elder-friendly versions of everything.

March 9-11