Mechanical aptitude

A friend invited me to help her go shopping with her 2-year-old grandson. He jumped right into his specially built car seat. The harness contraption looked like a parachute harness, only miniaturized. Hooks, latches, buttons so small I had to put on my reading glasses to figure it out.

Now I do consider myself mechanically inclined. Just haven't practiced much. Or maybe I've only practiced mechanical prowess on medical equipment recently.

Fortunately the two-year-old had the shoulder part of the kiddie seat harness done pat. The lower restraint part? Red button that does nothing when you press on it. My friend tells me she and her husband spent a half hour the other night and still don't know how to get it to release. Then I spy an arrow. It is not a press on red button, its a push down red button. I am so proud of myself.

The kitchen disposal didn't take kindly to my putting pitted olives down it. Thought pitted meant there were no pits. There were pits. Either way it jammed. I flipped the wall switch a couple of times (or more). Just in case it would jump start. Opened the cabinet doors to see if there was anything obvious. Like what? Not sure.

There on the wall of the cabinet was an Allen wrench. I know what an Allen wrench is. Grab it out of it's wall bracket. Now what? Usually I'd just ask Robert. Not an option. It has to go somewhere, it has its very own wall clip! Can't see any obvious places. Email my brother. Get a long explanation back but see the words, "on the bottom". And lo and behold the special Allen wrench fits. I turn it. And the disposal starts right up!

Also saw the words "unplug from wall." I spent more time trying to figure out where the disposal was plugged in than it actually took to fix. This is because it was wired into the wall.

To compensate for today not only being a Sunday, but also the end of Daylight Savings Time with a whole additional never ending hour, I decide I'll clean the house. A couple of weeks ago I traded Rob's treadmill for a working vacuum cleaner. A whole other story.

The upright vacuum has been standing quietly in the corner. I've been admiring the ingenious industrial design with all sorts of attachments cleverly integrated. Each piece has its own specific allocated place with clips and hooks.

I uncoil the electric cord, plug it in, and spend the next 5 minutes looking for the on/off switch. Creative design. The tilt release is easy to find and away we go.

Only it is not picking up dirt, dust or cat hair. Another time I'd have just called to Robert. Okay, I've read about this. I'm on my own, need to be resourceful. And have a back up plan—buy a new vacuum in a box with lots of pictures and directions. Or I suppose I could Google the make and model and hope for lots of pictures and directions. I decide to forge ahead unaided.

I turn it on and off a few times, now that I know where the switch is, hoping it will fix itself. Nope. Resort to pushing buttons and levers and manage to release the canister. And then the hose disconnects and dumps someone else's dirt all over the vacuum, my floor and me.

When I try and put the hose back into its slot, notice that there is a clump of jammed vacuumed stuff (I can think of other words but stuff is the most gender neutral). Duh! I pull it out. Yup, I am keeping my fingers crossed I will be able to vacuum all this back up.

Struggle to figure out how the canister clips back in, and where the hose hooks. And a long straight attachment falls off. But wait, the canister has snapped into place and the machine is working. Sucking up all its own dirt and all of mine. I am so proud of my resourcefulness. My mechanical aptitude. I fixed the vacuum!

As we (the vacuum and I) roll down the hall, other attachments start to fall off. It is vacuuming up the dust and dirt and cat hairs. Just leaving in our wake various tools that I have yet to ascertain their specific allocated spaces.