This has been the season of grease, breakdown, and triumph. Our washer broke down, the heater quit, my laptop button broke, raccoons took up residence in our walls, the van needed work, and my friend’s car was missing. (Well, she knew where it was, but… sorry, mechanic joke.) Most things are up and running now, thanks to a little money and a little manly time with tools. Some lessons:

1. Often a little dumb brute force is all something needs.

Anderson’s trick of pulling against a couple of tiny pink strings was something I swore would never work, and then it saved us from climbing under the house and fighting raccoons. Reminded me of the many times I swore Ori’s brute force tactics would “never work” when building the house. Sometimes, ya just gotta grab it and yank.

large wrench
2. I like working on cars more than I think I do.

I got a lot of joy out of having fixed things. I think this is why I’m so about hard fun and, potentially, a harder life. Sometimes it takes me forever to get started on a job. Then I’m greasy, sweating, bleeding, cursing my way through the steep part of the curve. Then the moment of realization comes, followed by the glorious wave of triumph and the happy cranking down of the last bolts, sealing it all tightly back into place.

I was miserable depressed earlier today and decided to just attack a car repair with all my energy. My face was pressed up against a greasy transmission and I had to do all of the work by feel, but having finally located the part and found a way to get to it, I was grinning and bouncing my way through cleanup. In fact, now I’m pumped to start cranking through the boring coding work I have to do. Work energy used seems to grow more work energy!

3. I like working on cars because someone started me young

Chatting with Anderson after getting some work done, I realized that most people hate working on cars. I was poking around our 1929 Model A Ford when I was a kid, and was encouraged to do it. My dad used to build hot rods and, after understanding the basics of working on cars, I drew on the energy he got from that kind of work and filled a little part of me that will always glow when I’m in the zone. Working on cars is emotionally connected to hours in the garage with my dad, classical music playing, pretzels and lemonade, and the rat-rat-rat of the ratchet. This is an experience I think very, very few people have now that cars have come to appear more complex. I wonder if this will change when electrics radically simplify things again?