Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Fix or Repair Daily

When I was a kid my father fixed everything.  He was cheap and he liked to tinker.  One year we bought a GE pop up toaster oven.  He loved that toaster because he could take things out without burning his hands.  He thought the design was brilliant.  After a few years of heavy use, it broke.  I found my father one Saturday morning with the toaster in pieces on the dining room table.  He was taking it apart to fix it.  You could still fix stuff back then  There was a store nearby that sold parts.  The heating rods went one by one, then the door latch had to be tinkered with.  After abut ten years, the replacement parts became unavailable.  The toaster went into retirement in the garage.  He just couldn't part with it.  Then by chance  he saw an old GE pop up toaster oven at a yard sale.  He bought it and was able to fix the old one with the parts. My dad was very happy to have his old friend back.  Nowadays things are harder.  They don't use screws to hold stuff together. It's cheaper to use glue which makes repairs trickier.  This not only plans for obsolescence,  but make repair impossible. I like to fix stuff.  My husband is really good at fixing stuff.  He fixes everything. He buys stuff to tinker with and learns by doing. He then re-sells or re-uses it.  He got bikes for just about every kid in the neighborhood.  It's fun to figure out how things work.  We've been losing that lately.  Things have become too complicated.  These days you can't fix your own car without specialty tools or even a toaster oven.

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