Just minutes ago, two extremely nice fellas from Brighthouse walked out my front door. They'd just finished switching over my former AT&T phone line to Brighthouse service and they installed a new Internet connection that's ten zillion times faster than AT&T's offerings. (Randy's brain was about to explode with how slow the Internet was in this house....)
While they were here, I realized something, or, a few somethings, rather:
1. I don't like wires. When it comes to anything electronic or technological, my brain wants to shut down completely. Someone tries to explain something to me about wires and cords and lines, and I suddenly get sleepy. It's my brain's response to information overload. The truth is: I don't want to know. I want phone lines and cable lines and Internet lines to magically turn on, and I don't want to remember a password to make them work. When the toaster breaks, I want to stare at it long enough that it will right itself and we can move on in our happy existences. (This never works. It also never works with broken boyfriends. Trust me. I've tried.) So, technology and me = not winning. Hell, I don't even Twitter because it seems too complicated. I never really liked blogs. (It's amazing that I'm actually on here.) I was a late adopter to the DVD player (though, apparently, not as late as Julia Spalding), and I have a fancy new iPhone 4S with Siri, and I only used Siri for fun for about a day before shutting her down and never going back. Yes, I own this super complicated phone only to check e-mails (which someone else set up for me), take millions of pictures of the animals, send text messages and make phone calls. I think this phone does a whole lot more than that, but I wouldn't know. The way I always see it: The more stuff something can do, the more possibilities for that stuff to break. And I don't know how to fix stuff when it breaks.
2. The astounding part about my first confession is this: I come from a large family of electricians. My dad owned his own electrical company. My uncle was an electrician, as well as a mechanic for USAir. My brother took over the company business; he's still wiring up houses or outlets or some such electronic devices today. My nephew is an electrician. His dad is an electrician. My brother-in-law is an electrician. And, because of all this, I grew up surrounded by wires. You'd think wires and I would have bonded a little more by now. Wires, it seems, are in my blood.
So what is wrong with me? The truth is I don't know. And all I can say is this: Thank God for Randy. He can fix anything from broken garbage disposals to broken hearts. (He has successfully fixed both so far.) Randy walks around this house and fixes things that are broken that I never even knew needed fixing. He has re-installed garbage disposals, swapped out sink and bathtub fixtures, installed new flooring, helped me paint, re-wired hanging lights, fixed faulty spots on the roof, switched out the old gas stove for the new (or old, rather) electric one, properly framed art, hung it on the walls, and more. And when a major appliance breaks? Team Dugger goes into action. I'd used my former treadmill until it could be used no more, and so Randy mentioned the death of it to his dad, who spends his days at auctions and estate sales. The following day, as I was at home working, I got a knock on my door. Randy's dad was on the porch with a new treadmill beside him. A few months pass and my dryer goes out. The next day? A visit from Randy's dad and a new dryer installation. God love Team Dugger. There are days when I wonder how I ever got along without them.
While all this makes me view RD with boatloads of respect, it also makes me feel pretty useless. My old staring routine when it comes to broken coffeemakers just isn't going to cut it anymore. (It never really did.) I've got to learn how to do something around here. Something more than just writin' about it.
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