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| Oh, this old telly may LOOK innocent, but it's a potential death trap |
I'm lazy. I'm a poor listener. I forget things. I tell terrible dad jokes. Oh, and I have a very bad record when it comes to repairing electrical appliances.
Electricity, they say, is to be respected at all times. They also say it can kill you. I assume it's only due to dumb luck I have not yet been killed, so far only mildly maimed.
I call into evidence Exhibit A: The Security Light.
Security lights are mysterious, aren't they? The basic idea seems simple enough; when it gets dark, the light will come on if someone walks past it. In reality, most security lights I've encountered take a more experimental approach to their core responsibilities. Some come on then stay on. Some don't come on at all. Some come on during the day. Some do a random combination of all of those, just to keep us guessing. Those crazy security lights.
But you've got to have them - how else are you supposed to keep the hordes of prospective home-invaders away? So when we moved to a house that didn't have security lights where it should have, I confidently offered to bung a set up. Take one on/off switch, the existing outdoor spotlight, the new security light and one metal ladder and you've a recipe for disaster - especially if you get the on/off switch and the metal ladder in the wrong order. Easy mistake to make. The ensuing loud bang and smell of singed hair not quite so easy to ignore. Still, the lights sort of worked in the end... eventually.
Exhibit B: The Old Telly.
When you're young and poor and just starting out, you may not be able to afford certain creature comforts the rest of us take for granted. Things like dishwashers, heat-pumps and meat that isn't mince for example. One of the things the Domestic Manager and I didn't have when we first moved in together was a flash, flat-screen TV. In fact, we had the exact opposite of that; an old, curvy-screen TV that took up so much space you almost had to watch it from another room.
Needless to say, the picture was not what you would call "High Res." That didn't stop me whipping the back off in a futile attempt to tweak the horizontal hold a bit. (I actually have no idea what horizontal hold is, if in fact it is a thing, but that's what I said I was trying to do, okay?) You know that really massive round magnet you'll find at the back of a big old TV? Take it from me, it pays not to let the metal buckle on your watch strap come into contact with it. Let's just say "BANG!" enjoy the smell of more singed hair and leave it at that, shall we?
Exhibit C: The Plug on the Microwave.
This was the final nail in my coffin of uselessness. For some reason the socket we wanted to plug the microwave into was situated INSIDE the pantry. "No worries," I said. "I'll just lop the plug off, drill a VERY small hole in the pantry wall, feed the lead through, screw a new plug on it and we'll be reheating our leftovers in no time."
Handy hint for those of you who may wish to attempt a similar procedure at home; you should probably UNPLUG the microwave BEFORE you cut through the cord with a pair of pliers. You should DEFINITELY switch it off. BANG! SINGE! You know how it goes by now.
Like I say, useless, useless, useless.
Therefore, it was with some surprise the Domestic Manager gave me the go-ahead to fix her GHD's this week. I'm not entirely sure what GHD's do - I do know it's something to do with hair and as such I daresay I am I woefully under-qualified to even HOLD them, let alone REPAIR them.
The mitigating factor here though, was replacement cost. Apparently, a new set of GHD's doesn't come cheap. It's been my experience NOTHING to do with women's hair comes cheap, but on the overall scale of not-coming-cheap, GHD's are way up there. Understandably, when the Domestic Manager's GHD's started turning themselves off mid-straighten, a fair amount of panic ensued.
Initially, I took the same approach I take to all of the Domestic Manager's hair maintenance requirements; maintain a respectful distance at all times while expressing absolutely no interest in the trivial matter of cost whatsoever. As a kiwi bloke of course, I was duty bound to at least have a squizz at the pink prongs in question, to see if I could somehow miraculously get them to work by jiggling something.
Sadly, my mere jiggling was to no avail, so I resorted to more extreme measures. I took the GHD's apart and put them back together again. Unbelievably, even this didn't make them go.
The problem seemed to be something to do with the cord, which got me thinking. What if there was some way I could replace the cord?
As it turns out, there was. That way was "screaming_skull".
"screaming_skull" sells replacement parts on TradeMe. For the exceedingly reasonable price of just $14 (plus $4 postage) "screaming_skull" sent me a new cord for the GHD's, I managed to replace the faulty one without electrocuting myself and now the Domestic Manager's hair is straight again.
Thank you, "screaming_skull", (or just "skull" to his TradeMe friends), you undoubtedly saved our lives...
...not to mention hundreds of dollars.
Sure, I can still smell burning hair, but at least this time it isn't mine.
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| This is me with UNstraightened hair and then me AFTER the repair. Viva la difference! |
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