Whenever I watch shows or read books about the exploits and...interesting living conditions of my ancestors in the soggy pastoral landscapes of northern Europe, I'm always struck by the amount of work that went into, well, everything. Want water to wash with? You better start out early, chump, because you've got a long day of schlepping water ahead of you. New socks? Yeah, you might as well forget about that, unless you're jonesing to shear a sheep, clean the fiber, card it, spin it, and stitch until your eyes bleed. Oh, I forgot: everyone just wore wooden shoes stuffed with straw, anyway. Never mind. You see, there was a shitload of stuff to do, pardon my French, and all this work really didn't leave a lot of time for the invention of such trivial things as the number zero and the chimney, until we a) pinched it from the Arabs in about 1200, and b) figured out a speedy 1100 years after Christ that if you funnel smoke in a contained structure through the roof instead of letting it hover in an impetent cloud just above your head, your eyes feel A LOT better. Better late than never, I guess.
But whatever people lacked in convenient technologies, they more than made up for in a freakish ability to be multi-faceted when it came to the daily repairs and a general knowledge required to, well, not die. At least not until all your teeth fell out first, at any rate. Unfortunately, I did not inherite said trait, at least not in it's positive form. For, like the Golden Rule, the Handyman Principle, as I have just named it, comes in two flavors: the positive and negative. OK, if you'll just be patient with me. I've got to geek-out for a second. You see, Jesus' Golden Rule represents its positive form: "Do unto others as you would have them to unto you," while Confusius articulated it in what is generally called "the negative form:" "Do not do to others as you would not have them do to you." Whew. OK, I'm glad I got that out of the way, because I feel a lot better. Oh, and don't worry, this will all come up again later. Maybe. I'm not getting graded on this, so what do I care if there are loose threads sticking out of it.
The positive form of the Handyman Principle means what it sounds like it should mean: you fix crap. Somethings's broken, you play with it, then it's healthy again. The negative form, of which I am a proud owner, works pretty much in the reverse: something is healthy and, before I'm done with it, it's broken. Or, something is broken, I play with it, and a microscopic screw launches under the couch or between the floorboards, never to be seen again, leaving said object worse off than when I found it. So you can understand the glee I experience everytime I look at the brand new, shiny toilet seat in the bathroom, the toilet seat I installed all by my lonesome a couple of days ago. I wish I were kidding, but everytime I gaze upon that white-painted wood, whether it be in passing, or through use, I become giddy and think "damn, I did that! Me, the guy who, three weeks ago, managed to fall OVER the steps leading out of the Continuing Education building, scraping off two inches of skin from my right knee. Me! Hot damn!"
I feel as if I have, in some small way, redeemed my fellow Geeks, those uncoordinated legions who have, throughout history, shouldered generations of people with the burden of faning interest in the speed of a dragon fly's wings in flight, the multiple uses of a sheep's bladder, or the name of Gandolf's sword in "The Hobbit." It's "Glamdring, the Foehammer." Ugh. Christ. Who have I been redeeming, again? Oh, that's right, Geeks. Ahem.....
Rejoice, ye pale basement dwellers, for your star has risen! I have installed a toilet seat! Cast off your coke bottle glasses and follow me into the su.....ummm, air conditioned living room and take your place at the table! The world is your frozen pizza! And the time is come to claim it!
Amen, Brother. Amen.
But whatever people lacked in convenient technologies, they more than made up for in a freakish ability to be multi-faceted when it came to the daily repairs and a general knowledge required to, well, not die. At least not until all your teeth fell out first, at any rate. Unfortunately, I did not inherite said trait, at least not in it's positive form. For, like the Golden Rule, the Handyman Principle, as I have just named it, comes in two flavors: the positive and negative. OK, if you'll just be patient with me. I've got to geek-out for a second. You see, Jesus' Golden Rule represents its positive form: "Do unto others as you would have them to unto you," while Confusius articulated it in what is generally called "the negative form:" "Do not do to others as you would not have them do to you." Whew. OK, I'm glad I got that out of the way, because I feel a lot better. Oh, and don't worry, this will all come up again later. Maybe. I'm not getting graded on this, so what do I care if there are loose threads sticking out of it.
The positive form of the Handyman Principle means what it sounds like it should mean: you fix crap. Somethings's broken, you play with it, then it's healthy again. The negative form, of which I am a proud owner, works pretty much in the reverse: something is healthy and, before I'm done with it, it's broken. Or, something is broken, I play with it, and a microscopic screw launches under the couch or between the floorboards, never to be seen again, leaving said object worse off than when I found it. So you can understand the glee I experience everytime I look at the brand new, shiny toilet seat in the bathroom, the toilet seat I installed all by my lonesome a couple of days ago. I wish I were kidding, but everytime I gaze upon that white-painted wood, whether it be in passing, or through use, I become giddy and think "damn, I did that! Me, the guy who, three weeks ago, managed to fall OVER the steps leading out of the Continuing Education building, scraping off two inches of skin from my right knee. Me! Hot damn!"
I feel as if I have, in some small way, redeemed my fellow Geeks, those uncoordinated legions who have, throughout history, shouldered generations of people with the burden of faning interest in the speed of a dragon fly's wings in flight, the multiple uses of a sheep's bladder, or the name of Gandolf's sword in "The Hobbit." It's "Glamdring, the Foehammer." Ugh. Christ. Who have I been redeeming, again? Oh, that's right, Geeks. Ahem.....
Rejoice, ye pale basement dwellers, for your star has risen! I have installed a toilet seat! Cast off your coke bottle glasses and follow me into the su.....ummm, air conditioned living room and take your place at the table! The world is your frozen pizza! And the time is come to claim it!
Amen, Brother. Amen.
posted by Der verwirrte Ausländer at 6:52 PM
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