OPEN THE DOOR

I (obviously mistakenly) think of myself as a fairly normal, rational person. I know how to drive a car, can change a flat tire (although, I must admit, there have been several occasions when I have played the helpless female to get a guy to do it for me), fix (some) toilet problems, and what the difference between a Phillips & flat screwdriver (anyone know who Phillips was?).

Today I was humbled and forced to reassess that self-image.

Our front door doorknob (is that redundant?) - okay, the doorknob on our front door (yeah, that works better) has been getting looser and looser for . . . well, how many years have we lived here? Going on seven? I have backed off repeatedly trying to fix it myself, because even looking at the instructions involved with putting in a new one throws me into a down-spiraling panic. There are about seventeen-gadzillion little tiny metal pieces and volumes of instructions and odd pieces that are described only in paragraph 118 section F, etc.

But today the doorknob was hanging by only positive thinking, so I ventured into Lowe’s this morning, certain that I would only find the endless instructions in a package full of random shiny metallic parts. Admitting defeat before I even crossed the threshold, I went directly to the customer service desk, resolved to ask and PAY to have someone come OUT to my house and INSTALL the (#&$(*)_ doorknob.

Now, Lowe’s and Home Depot always seem to be advertising that "we’ll show you how, but we can install it, too!" Seems to be true about a lot of things . . . except doorknobs (and it would be incredibly expensive anyway, I realize - just to get someone to drive twenty plus miles to get out here anyway). HOWEVER, the fellow at Lowe’s (also see side-note below) who told me that they didn’t have anyone they could refer me to, ALSO walked me over to the doorknob section, took out a knob as I wanted, and then took it out of the book, took it apart, and SHOWED ME HOW TO PUT IT BACK TOGETHER on an actual DOOR.

It was amazing.

(Side-note: It was also semi-sensational that this employee at Lowe’s was hmm . . . probably late 40's, original hair, kinda rugged good looks . . . I would have followed him around for a while more if I could)

However (of course one of my stories couldn’t end without a twist at the end), when I got home, took the old knob off (yeah, I blew on it once, and it fell to the floor), and ‘manfully’ (I just love that expression; of course, you have to imagine it in a bad English slash gay accent) began to put it all together, I discovered a couple of things.

First, it’s not a really good idea to install anything on the exterior of your house on an extremely windy, COLD day in January (all right, it’s Arizona, but it still gets cold here - at least to a thin-blooded-native-Southern-Californian/Hawaiian-by-adoption - but it WAS very windy). And second, once you take OFF the original hanging-by-a-thread doorknob, guess what? YOU THEN DO NOT HAVE A WAY TO OPEN OR CLOSE THE DOOR.

And I, in a less-than-brilliant move, concluded that I must use sheer mass (as in my husband’s briefcase, three floodlights, my heaviest biking boots) to KEEP THE DOOR SHUT. And it took me MORE THAN TWENTY MINUTES before I realized - gee, we have a deadbolt on the door - I can use THAT to keep the door shut.

Geesh.

And the doorknob is going to have to wait until tomorrow (the door has to be shaved slightly to make it all fit together), so a kitchen towel is stuffed into the open hole and the bolt is firmly locked.

Wish me luck - the way I’ve been going, I may end up with a garage door opener in place of the lock (but then again, if I can get that same guy at Lowe's to come help me....)