I am pretty handy when it comes to routine house maintenance issues. It isn’t because I am very smart, it is because, I have no choice but to do it by myself.

The first time I learned the valuable lesson of “never ever call a trades man/repair guy” was when I was living in Canada. Yaya wanted to learn to play the piano and I found a cheap Yamaha on the Craig’s list. One key wasn’t working. Yaya and I are ” play by the ear” kind of people and when one key doesn’t work, it bothered both of us..You could distinctly hear that emptiness of the missing note. I found a piano repair guy’s number in the Yellow pages and called him. I explained what is wrong and asked how long it would take to fix it. He said less than an hour. He came, tinkered a bit and suddenly we had 6 keys not working. He spend the next 4 hours fixing the piano and he gave me the bill for 200$. I paid him from the 400$ I set aside to pay the rent. Until that day, I had no idea how expensive it was to call someone to repair something. In Malaysia the same would have cost me less than 50RM. ( To be honest, I would have been able to buy a new Piano instead of repairing the old one)

It was a very hard lesson to learn and I have been careful ever since.

Sometime ago, I needed to change the washer for a leaky tap. I opened the cover for the mains and stared at the valve. I didn’t know which way to turn the bloody thing to close it. My son seeing the puzzled look on my face told me

“Mom, remember, loosey lefty, righty tighty”. Apparently, his skateboard instructor had taught him that. You turn it left to loosen something and right to tighten it.

I was terrified of screwing up the simple chore of changing the washer. I imagined causing the next flood..and a huge water bill. I took a visual image of each item I opened/took out from the tap ensuring that every little detail is stored in my brain, so I knew where it should all go back.For once I wanted to be born as a man, because all these activities comes so natural to them. After plenty of cursing and swearing, I managed to change the washer. Both the tap and Sarah survived to tell the tale.

Few days ago, I was baking meat loafs for my children’s school lunch and the cheese on top wasn’t melting quickly enough and I was running late. I thought, I will use the toaster oven to melt the cheese. I cranked up the heat in the toaster oven. Next thing I know the power to the living room and the garage was gone. I checked the mains and the ELCB was down. I had no idea if the ELCB knob should be down or up. Power to the wifi was down as well. So I couldn’t check the net. I asked my son to use my phone to see if the ELCB knob should be down or up and he thought I was asking him what ELCB was and was looking for that. Obviously, I knew what ELCB was and I was mad at him for not understanding what I was asking him to find out. Since the power was off in two rooms and all the other knobs are in the on position, I assumed ELCB tripped.

I switched off all the plugs and tried to lift the ELCB knob. It stayed in the on position till I switched on one of the plugs. It made no sense to me and I knew there was a leak somewhere. My process of elimination to find out where the leak was a failure. I had to leave home for work and I did. Both my fridge and freezer were not working and I couldn’t afford to throw all the food out. So, I called an electrician and organized him to pick up the key from my neighbour.

I came home to find a bill for 98$. Apparently, my 4 year old toaster oven decided to die and all the electrician did was to  disconnect it completely by removing the plug from the socket. His time is counted hourly plus the GST cost me 98$  ( I swear, in my next life I want to be either a plumber or an electrician)

Instead of switching of all the plugs, I should have pulled all the plugs out and then tried to plug it in one by one. I didn’t know that.

I know 98$ isn’t much. But still, it was my 98 $..there is so much I could have done with my 98$