Garbage in, garbage out

I will never be confused with home improvement homo Bob Villa in my own house. Hell, I don't even have Tim Taylor's skills.

It's not that I don't know how to fix broken stuff - well, that's part of it many times - I'm just a slack ass who'd rather watch TV shows about home improvements than actually improving the home.

Sometimes, though, I've just had to man up and get the job done. When the kitchen faucet decided what the room needed was an Italian-piazza style fountain, I pulled on my hip-waders and rain slicker and changed that bad boy out (no thanks to that big orange home fixer-up shop who sold us a shoddy faucet that was broken even before I got my mitts on it). And with the help of Wife's dear papa, we swapped out a leaky water heater for a new baby that will cook your skin in three seconds or less, or we get our money back. So, after some CSI investigation on why our cabinet under the sink was turning into the Everglades complete with lush fauna (spinach and broccoli) and plenty insect species (I thought they were filming Bugs Life 2 down there).

Why was our kitchen cabinet submersible? The garbage disposal finally had enough of us chucking down moldy orange rinds and regurgitated pig knuckles. So, instead of just quitting on us, the disposal sprouted a half-dozen salt-caked holes the size of a Jerry Mouse's penis allowing bits of crap to escape thereby plastering the back of the cabinet in a mess of yellow, green and red chunks.

My old man was in town, so I had myself some day labor to help me out. He took his usual house repair pose - the one I remember so vividly as a kid - sitting at the kitchen table beer in hand while I sweat and swore to get the bastard disposal down so the new crap eater could take its spot.

With a gaping hole where the disposal should be, I went about reading the directions for the next step. I've learned to swear by instructions for any piece of machinery. When Wife bought a new vibrator, we hunkered down and read the book front to back and followed the directions to a G. Well, that's what I did for this installation and instead of clearing the whole process up, it turned six ways from Wednesday. I'd read the next step, look at the gaping hole, look at the new disposer and then back to the instructions. Finally, after the of completing the cycle of looks for the eighth time my Old Man must have felt I was quickly approaching the peak of Being Over My Head so he wandered over to clear up the confusion (he may have come over to freshen up the brewsky).

"Hey, ass face," my Old Man said. "You already have those parts installed. They're from the old one. Just shove this SOB up there and twist. Connect that pipe, wire that plug and we'll be throwing your cats in to test the rookie disposal out in no time."

He punctuated his directions with a Schlitz belch that rattled the pipes and loosened the recently replaced faucet's nuts. But without the Old Man standing there, I'd guarantee we'd be letting the dogs lick every plate clean because the disposal would still be in a state of mid-build.

Sometimes, a little fatherly direction goes a long way.