After years of living in the country and hiring people to come out and fix problems that I created myself, I finally fixed something on my own. It was pretty minor, I admit, but I still did it all by myself. Rather than calling for help and paying someone else to rescue me from my own ignorance, I decided to try to figure it out on my own. And I was successful.
Turns out, all I needed was the proper motivation.
And it appears that shame and the fear of further personal humiliation was that motivation.
A couple months ago, I noticed some of my plants were dying and the drip system responsible for watering them had stopped working. I hired a sprinkler repair guy to come out, only to have him inform me that the lines were full of mud and all I had to do to get them working was run some water through them.
I documented this particular ordeal at the time it happened. If you are so inclined, you can read about it HERE.
What I didn’t tell you, is that a couple weeks later, some of my front lawn began to die. I was able to isolate the problem to a particular sprinkler valve that was not turning on when it was supposed to. I attempted to manually turn it on a few times, but the water continued to refuse to run through it.
I hired the same sprinkler guy to come out and take a look at it. He came out the next day. Why not? He made $100 bucks for 30 seconds work the last time he came to my house, so he probably figured he could make a quick score again.
I, however, knew it would not be so easy this time. This time there was really something wrong that he would need to fix. I was sure of it.
When the sprinkler guy showed up, he asked me what was wrong. I showed him the sprinkler valve that wasn’t working and pointed out the section of lawn it was supposed to be watering.
Sprinkler Guy knelt down and turned on the valve. Nothing happened. I was starting to feel vindicated about my decision to call for help this time. Next, he twisted a knob on top of the valve.
The sprinklers turned on.
“Um, what did you do?” I asked him, already realizing that I had done it again. I had called for help to fix something that was apparently not broken.
“The water flow control was turned off.”
Now I was really feeling stupid. It was like calling an electrician to fix a light fixture only to find out I had forgotten to turn the light switch on.
Sprinkler Guy turned the water on and off a few times to be sure there were no other problems, but everything was working fine. I thanked him for coming out and then trudged into the house to get my checkbook. Fortunately for me, this time, he told me there would be no charge since he didn’t actually fix anything. He got into his truck, waved at me, and said, “I’ll see you next time.”
He has gotten to know me too well.
Fast forward a few more weeks. I was outside the house and I wandered over to where I have several fruit trees planted in the backyard. The entire area was flooded. The bubblers that water the trees were all dribbling water.
I said several words that would probably have gotten me fired from most places of employment.
I narrowed the problem down to the control valve again. Instead of refusing to turn on, this time it was refusing to shut off. I grabbed my phone and was about to call Sprinkler Guy again. Then I paused. If I called him out for another false alarm, I would never live it down.
Besides, he would probably see my number come up on his phone and send it direct to voicemail. Assuming he hadn’t blocked my number from his phone altogether at this point. I had already wasted his time twice. He would not be eager to come out a third time.
I also did not want to be exposed for a complete moron a third time. I decided that I would dismantle the valve and check to see if I could find the problem myself. I figured that even if I couldn’t fix it, I could at least do so much damage to the mechanism that Sprinkler Guy would be forced to replace the valve when he arrived.
He’ll have to earn his money this time, I figured.
I shut the water off to the valve from the main water pipe, grabbed my screwdriver, and completely took the damn thing apart. When I opened up the valve, I noticed a tiny piece of orange plastic stuck to the rubber diaphragm that is responsible for sealing the water pipe closed. The plastic was lodged under the edge of the diaphragm preventing it from closing completely.
Could the problem be that simple? I didn’t believe it could, but I removed the plastic and put the valve back together anyway. It was worth checking, right?
When I turned the water back on, the valve closed normally and the bubblers under the fruit trees stopped leaking.
I had actually fixed it! I didn’t need Sprinkler Guy to come out and make me feel like an idiot, then charge me for the privilege. I could make me feel like an idiot all by myself, for free.
I’m sure this success is only temporary, however. I fully expect in a few days that particular valve is going to explode into a million tiny pieces because I did something stupid to it while I had it open. But that is a problem for tomorrow.
I just hope Sprinkler Guy is still taking my calls.
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