A Sinking Feeling

knowledge vs age

The unopened box containing a utility sink silently confronted me by just sitting there on the garage floor. What had seemed like an easy project in the Costco warehouse was now attempting to undermine my self-confidence.

“Listen to me,” I growled. “I used to work on atomic bombs - You don’t scare me.”

The box said nothing.

So that’s the way you want it? I thought.

I picked up a box cutter and sliced the box open.

Like a surgical intern, I peered uncertainly into the dark opening. Inside, there were more boxes of several sizes and shapes, each labeled with Chinese characters, and on top of all of them was a booklet of instructions in three different languages.

I gave an involuntary shudder while attempting a calm demeanor. It’s never a good idea to let a project sense fear.

I opened the instructions and noticed right away that there were many warnings and lots of pictures with circles and arrows, but almost no written directions. For a moment, my heart sank.

I remembered that my work on the bombs had been 50 years ago, and a younger me made up in energy and enthusiasm what he lacked in knowledge. Oh, and he had been a much faster learner.

Pushing all this negativity aside, I took the evil box inside using my trusty hand truck. (Bless the person who invented that.) In the living room, I unpacked the sink and all its parts and placed them around the room. This strategy of divide and conquer had worked in the past, and at this point, I had nothing to lose.

With a renewed sense of authority, I grasped the instructions and studied them.

They made no apparent sense to me. They seemed backward and pictures of parts that favored nothing I could see in the room.

I knew that this would be a struggle to the death. There would be no quarter asked or given.

The easy part called out to me - “Remove the old sink. You can do it. All you have to do is break it apart. Come on, you are good at breaking things.”

I was good at breaking things. Better now than I have ever been

Locating the water shutoff, I turned it until it produced a dry squeak.

I then confronted the drain pipe - who knew what filth had exited the world through that pipe. I reflected on this for a moment.

With a bucket under the pipe, I loosened the connections and let the foul contents fall into it.

That was round one.

I removed the screws attaching the old sink to the wall and carried the old sink into the garage.

There was a part of me that felt bad for the old sink. It still worked even though it was old, but it got replaced anyway because it wasn’t pretty anymore.

I felt evil and heartless, but the old sink went out to the curb. It made me feel better that a ‘Picker’ would probably get it before the trash collector. It probably would have a new life somewhere else.

Round two.

The new sink and I faced each other like two cowboys on a dusty street in a bad western movie. There were long moments of dramatic, silent confrontation.

“Enough!” I shouted at the evil fixture.

It just sat there with a mocking attitude written all over it.

I grabbed it and put it in its new place (a little more roughly than necessary), stood back contemplating my next move.

Picking up “the instructions,” I wondered if this was part of a Chinese conspiracy to attack the mental health of Americans.

I tossed the gibberish aside and, hiking up my jeans, started picking up pieces and discovered by trial and error how they went together.

My confidence built as it all started to make sense to me. I picked up a wrench. How hard could it be?

I measured and drilled anchor holes in the wall.

The fact that there were already holds in the wall, but they weren’t in the right places, didn’t faze me. But there were the beginnings of an uneasy feeling in the air.

The sink was designed so that the bolts to fix it to the wall could not be tightened unless one was on his tired old back under it.

My Chinese conspiracy theory began to reassert itself.

Seeing no option, I knelt down and rolled onto my back. Lining the holes, I reached for the bolts and remembered I had left the bolts and wrench on the top of the washing machine..

I tried to reach them from my supine position, but both were inches out of my reach. I knew with a sinking feeling I would have to get up and get down and get up at least one more time than I thought. This is a significant thing for an old man for whom getting down is difficult, but getting up is like a labor of Hercules.

After contemplating my fate for a few moments, I flopped around like a beached whale and managed to get onto my stomach. From that position, I could use my right arm to push myself to my knees (the left arm has been losing strength for a while now -in spite of exercise). I got to my feet with a mighty struggle and vowed to stay there as long as possible.

The thought of it was easier than getting up and down, so I planned the rest of the project in my mind, allowing for some errors before attempting another descent to the floor. I laid out all the necessary parts and tools on the floor within easy reach under the sink.

After all this careful planning, I descended once again to the floor, attached the sink to the wall, and made all the plumbing connections to the faucets and drain.

I basked in the warm feeling of success for a few minutes and then began the lengthy and somewhat painful process of getting back to my feet.

In a flash of brilliance. I stopped while on my knees, realizing the drain might leak. Kneeling, I could reach the faucets to turn on the water to test the drain for leaks. When I turned on the water, the drain did leak. I wouldn’t have expected anything else.

I had put a bucket under the drain.to catch the leaking water. But could not reach the drain without lying down again.

It took two more tries before the leak stopped (I still don’t trust it a year later).

Standing there after the project was done(?), I contemplated my capabilities.

I still could do these kinds of projects, but it took a lot more planning, and the physical cost was high. So the question was,: Is the glow of success worth the pain? At my age, it depends on a cost-benefit analysis on a case-by-case basis.