Patio screen doors – the kind with wheels on the top and the bottom – are the creation of the devil.
\nI swear, this is true.
\nOf all the household tasks to be done, installing one of these satanic doors is my least favorite.<\/p>
\nI’ve had a barely workable screen door for a couple of years now, and finally decided to get a new one.
\nSo, this morning, I went to the local lumberyard, hauling the old door with me to be sure I got the right size.
\nI brought the new door back to the house and, of course, couldn’t get it in correctly.
\nMaybe because it’s been a stressful week, I totally lost it, ended up pulling the damnable thing out, ripping the screen, and stomping on it until it was a crumpled, hideous mess, and breaking my favorite screwdriver in the process.
\nWell, sometimes even a strong woman needs a cathartic minute or five.
\nFiguring that I could pull at least a three-fer (it turned out to be a four-fer), I decided to drive to Hyannis and the Home Depot – the cost of the gas would be worth it if I could parlay the trip into several errands.
\nSo, I got Home Depot on the phone, and after they connected me to the Door Person, I asked him if they had a patio screen replacement door that didn’t require a PhD to install.
\nThe salesman, whose name I don’t recall, said “No, you don’t need a doctorate, only a Masters in Mechanical Engineeering.”
\nI knew right away, I was on the right track (pun intended).
\nI stopped in to BJ’s, Home Depot, the bank and on impulse, Four Seas ice cream shop in Centerville; they are closing tomorrow, and I wanted to stock up on a couple of quarts, including Butter Crunch, not one of my usuals.
\nA friend noticed the big parcel in the back of the truck, and came over to see what it was. She’s a handy kind of a gal, and she almost got the door on when we ran into a snag.
\nSo, she asked another friend to help, a guy who seems able to fix almost anything.
\nHe managed to install not only the door, but a primitive locking mechanism that he predicted would fall off, but who cares.
\nThe whole process was ridiculously complicated, requiring lining up tiny wheels on two tiny tracks, adjusting and re-adjusting four stupid, screw-enabled mechanisms. I still don’t know how he did it without magic or invocation.
\nSo, now I have a splendid new door with an intact screen that opens easily and that doesn’t squeal. It even locks after a fashion.
\nTurns out that Butter Crunch is one of my fixit-pal’s favorites, and I sent him home with a quart of the best ice cream on Cape Cod.
\nAnd that’s how I spent this afternoon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Patio screen doors – the kind with wheels on the top and the bottom – are the creation of the devil. I swear, this is true. Of all the household tasks to be done, installing one of these satanic doors … Continue reading