Tom McLaughlin [03/29/2007]

By Tom McLaughlin

When something breaks, people expect me to fix it. Im a father, a husband, a grandfather. I also take care of vacation properties to supplement my teacher salary. To fulfill these roles, I need a workbench with a vise and tools within reach. So, when I built my garage, I put a work area in one corner. If I pull a vehicle in and open the hood, my workbench is right there with lights, a power source and tools. Much of this had been in my basement and there is still a bench down there, but I dont use it much. Its hard to lug stuff up and down the stairs and there isnt as much room to work on large objects as there is in the garage.Theres one problem, though. My garage workbench is right next to the door leading into the house, so when someone comes home with armloads of things, the natural tendency is to set one or more of the loads down on my bench before opening the door. Sometimes theyll come back and put it where it belongs and sometimes they wont. Stuff accumulates, covering every square foot of space in a matter of weekssometimes only days. So, when I need to work on something, I must first clean off all that stuff before I can set down whatever Im supposed to fix and examine it.Thats frustrating. Its seldom possible to call everyone who put the stuff there and ask them to take it away, so I have to deal with it myself. By the time Im done, my mood has sometimes soured and I dont feel like fixing whatever broke.Some items are things people dont really want very much, but cant make the decision to throw away either. So when I ask them to put the things away, they dont actually have a place. The items havent been adopted into the household. Theyre kind of a temporary foster things and decisions on their final status have been postponed or forgotten. It falls to me to have to force a resolution. Usually I say something like: Well put them somewhere, or Im going to put them in the trash. They dont belong on my workbench. In response, I hear a sigh and an Oh all right, and some foot stomping while they do it. Those are not the kinds of interactions that engender good will. Though Id originally set out to do something helpful and niceto fix something for somebodyit can get unpleasant.A friend has been remodeling a kitchen and he gave me some old oak wall cabinets. I hung them in the garage and organized a lot of my tools and other stuff and I feel good now. I cleaned off my entire workbench and it looks great. I know where my tools are and theres a cleared work area on top where I can actually set something down, turn it over and around, disassemble it, and work on it. I dont know how long it will stay that way, but for the time being, my workbench can be what it was meant to be. I feel powerfulready to fix whatever should break next. Im even looking forward to it.It had been so long since Id thoroughly cleaned it off, things appeared which I couldnt identify. They were metal, plastic or polymer and more like pieces of things, but Ive forgotten what things. I dont know if they were important things or unimportant things. My wife might have put them there or I might have, but neither of us can remember. Those weighty decisions now fall to me: throw them away only to find out later that they were dreadfully important doodads? I cant form a committee to decide because Im all alone, so I put them in an large coffee can labeled UPIPs, or Unidentified, but Possibly Important Pieces. I have to save them for five years before I can dispose of them.Then I realize there are UPIPs on top of my dresser, in the kitchen catch-all drawer, on the dashboard of my pickup truck, on the desk in my office at home and on my desk at school. Should I consolidate them all in this one container or leave them where they are? Decisions, decisions. Its too much to consider all in one weekend. Ill leave them there for now and figure it out later. Tom McLaughlin is a teacher and columnist who lives in Lovell, Maine. He can be reached on his blog at http://tommclaughlin.blogspot.com