Screwed by the holidays

Grumpy dads everywhere dread the approach of the holidays. To us, the gift-giving season means one thing: "ready-to-assemble."

We'll spend the waning days of the year hunched over a random collection of parts that don't fit together so well, trying to assemble them into something useful. We'll try to decipher instructions written in a secret code by someone with only a rudimentary grasp of English, while we simultaneously keep one eye on televised bowl games.

Things will go wrong.

Nothing terrible. It won't be the end of the world, for Pete's sake. But it will be frustrating, enough to edge us dads one inch closer to our inevitable heart attacks, and to make us say "bad words" in front of the children.

Even if you avoid "ready-to-assemble" your whole life, you'll still face minor repair jobs that will challenge your sanity. Things break. You've got to fix them. It won't always go smoothly.

Here's why: The recalcitrant screw. The screw that won't turn properly, no matter what. The rusted nut. The missing gizmo. The broken whatsit.

It's not the overall job that's so daunting, it's the minor complication. That's the part that drives us nuts. So much so, that we dread these jobs. So much so, that it ruins the experience for us. We can't revel in the fact that we successfully fixed Aunt Mabel's lamp. Instead, every time we pass that lamp, we think: "I remember that (mutter, sputter) stripped bolt. That was a dark day."

I got to thinking about the recalcitrant screw recently while helping my wife with a home repair project. Rather, while watching my wife accomplish a home repair project. My contribution was to hold the flashlight, some distance away.

In our kitchen, a fluorescent light fixture had buzzed and winked for, oh, two years. It was annoying, but we'd all sort of grown accustomed it because we were too lazy or ignorant or unmotivated or scared to try to fix it. Mostly lazy.

I have a good excuse for ignoring the problem. As the man of the house, I am terrified of electric shock. The reasons behind my phobia -- why I can barely stand to walk on carpet and touch a doorknob -- are deep and complicated, but let's cut to the chase: Me big sissy.

My wife fears nothing. She looked up some instructions in a book and took the fixture apart and repaired a shorted wire and put it all back together again with a new bulb, and it works like a new one. I witnessed the whole thing. For this feat, she will always be my hero.

However, there was a moment when it didn't look so rosy. When she reached the recalcitrant screw. It was the final one, of course, that last little business before declaring "mission accomplished." The screw went in crooked and stuck there. She had to work it out of the hole, then try it again. Crooked. She started over.

It went on like this for a while, and she never once lost her patience or shouted curses. She just quietly noodled that recalcitrant screw until it fit where it belonged.

Not the way I would've handled it at all, and she wasn't trying to watch football at the same time, but whatever. I'm happy the buzzing is gone.

I've learned one thing from this experience. Come Christmas, my wife's in charge of assembling everything.

I've got to look after my heart.
　
　

Lessons learned

The used SUV we bought for our sons came with a lugnut-style lock on the rear-mounted spare tire. But no key.

A special type of star-shaped key was needed to unscrew the lock. We couldn't find a matching one anywhere. I tried auto parts stores, hardware stores, tire shops. Nobody could help. The advice I universally got was to hammer a socket onto the chrome lugnut lock, then ratchet them both off. I tried this several times, buying expensive jumbo sockets each time, and could never get it to work. I showed the lock to friends with power tools. I hit it with a hammer. I tried anything to avoid an expensive trip to the locksmith.

This went on for months and months. Always, somewhere in the back of my mind, was my losing battle with this lock. If I forgot about it, the car promptly got a flat, which required a full emergency rescue and served as a reminder that the spare was useless as long as that lock was in the way.

Finally, I broke down. Yesterday, teeth clenched against the expected expense, we took the car to a locksmith. The locksmith used an expansion socket, which is tapered inside, and had the lock off of there in minutes. The cost? Eight bucks.

I'd spent three times that much on sockets that I subsequently ruined with a hammer. Not to mention the hundreds of dollars spent on antacids and headache remedies and booze. All trying to avoid that expensive trip to the locksmith. Duh.

Two lessons here that we've all heard before, but bear repeating:

1) Use the right tool for the job.

2) Leave it to the experts.

It's much easier to write a check than to jury-rig a solution that probably won't work and may result in personal injury. Often, the experts don't cost as much as we fear. Besides, you can make up the cost with savings on booze.

Calling Dr. Poolman

Nothing says "summer" like the sting of chlorinated water in your eyes.

Swimming seems a great way to "beat the heat," which is why so many people make the mistake of putting swimming pools right in their own yards.

Pools have become commonplace in warmer climes. Fly over any Sun Belt city, and you'll be astounded by the number of pools you see in the yards below. It's as if our cities have broken out in bright blue freckles.

But those freckles are not the pristine bodies of water that they seem. Instead, they're vats of chemical soup, a mix of chlorine and pH balancer and algacide and clarifier and -- my personal favorite -- "flocculant." Oh, and some water, if there's any room left.

Who do we put in charge of such hazardous chemicals? The local fire department's "hazmat" team? The Environmental Protection Agency? No, we leave it to the homeowners. We give them little kits with test tubes and dyes and potions, and easy access to all the chemicals needed to purify their pools. (Available right in the supermarket! Near the food!) As for training, pool owners are given a hearty, "You're on your own." Then they're qualified to play Dr. Poolman the Chemist.

It's a wonder we haven't all bleached ourselves to death.

This is not what homeowners have in mind when they decide to take the plunge (har!) into pool ownership. They picture themselves blissfully floating on an air mattress, holding a drink with an umbrella in it, while grateful children paddle around, shouting hosannas about parents who know how to have "fun."

Hahaha on that. I've been a pool owner for years now (since we moved into a home that came with one already in place), and I can tell you that idyllic summer moment happens, um, never.

Yes, the pool's right outside. Yes, it looks enticing. And, OK, yeah, the children do seem to enjoy jumping into it over and over, a jillion times, until all the water has splashed out and killed the lawn. But then there are the negatives:

1) The water is co-o-o-old.

2) The children are never grateful. They don't think we're "fun" parents because we supply an oversized bathtub out back. To them, parents have one role where the pool is concerned: We are targets for "cannonballs."

3) Swimming seems like good exercise until you try it in your average residential pool. You can't swim in a pool that size. All you can do is turn around. Stroke, stroke, TURN. Stroke, stroke, TURN. You'll get dizzy before you burn any calories.

4) There's all that maintenance, including the cleaning of filters and the monitoring of electronic equipment (Water and electricity together. Shocking!) and the handling of chemicals labeled with more warnings than your standard package of bubonic plague virus.

It's so easy to make a mistake.

Not enough chemicals and cleaning, and your pool quickly turns into a green breeding ground for the Swamp Thing. Too much, and the children run round red-eyed and squawling while their hair falls out. Such alarm can make a parent spill his drink.

Let the chemistry get far enough out of balance, and the toxic stew can eat the concrete and leave a headline-grabbing sinkhole.

Then, next time you're on a plane, you can point with pride: "My house? Why, it's right there. The one with the big brown freckle."

B.T. phone home

“Hello?”

“Hi, it’s me. I’m at the airport in (insert city here). Thought I’d call and see how things are around the house.”

“Oh, everybody’s fine. Just the usual around here.”

“Yeah? No major disasters? Haha.”

“Oh, you know, the usual. A small grease fire when (insert teen-ager’s name here) was cooking, but everything’s fine now. A little smoke damage.”

“Yipes.”

“We needed to paint the kitchen anyway.”

“Was (teen’s name) traumatized by the fire?”

“Nah. (S/he) seemed to think the whole thing was funny.”

“We’ll see how funny (s/he) thinks it is when (s/he) gets to paint the kitchen.”

“I’m just glad no one was hurt. Although the fire did affect the dog.”

“How so?”

“He yarked up all over the carpet. I guess it was the smoke. Might’ve been something he ate. One of my rubber gloves is missing.”

“Better keep an eye on him.”

“I will.”

“I’m afraid to ask about the cat.”

“Missing for three days now.”

“But the kids are OK?”

“Well, we did hear from the school.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Hate to bother you with this when you’re traveling. I’ll take care of it.”

“No, go ahead and tell me.”

“Well, (insert student’s name here) got detention. We have to meet with the principal.”

“What did (s/he) do this time?”

“It’s no big deal. Just the usual. (His/her) hair.”

“Now what?”

“It’s (purple/pink/magenta/green/some other color not found in nature).”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake--”

“And it’s shaved off on one side of (his/her) head.”

“Are you kid--”

“And the other side is dreadlocks.”

Pause.

“Well, that’s different.”

“The usual teen-aged attempt to get attention, but the principal says it’s distracting the other students.”

“Oh, well. It’s only hair. It can be (fixed/shorn/burned).”

“Also, the principal said (his/her) clothes are inappropriate.”

“What kind of puritanical operation are they running--”

“I think it was the fuzzy chaps that did it.”

“Oh.”

“Another fashion statement. The usual.”

“What about (insert older child’s name here)?”

“Some progress there. (S/he) called the other day and (s/he) is not riding with those bikers anymore. Had a little dustup in (insert city name), but I sent bail money and it’s all fine now.”

“Sounds like you’ve got everything under control.”

“Oh, sure. But hey, I was going to ask you: Have you noticed a funny noise in the bathroom?”

“What kind of a noise?”

“Kind of a rumbling? After flushing?”

“Uh-oh.”

“The plumber said it was a sewer line problem.”

“Oh, no.”

“It’s OK. He fixed it. Only a thousand bucks. And the sinkhole isn’t even that big.”

“Aaugh.”

“You’ll see, when you get home from your trip. I think we can fix it ourselves. Rent a dump truck. Buy some sod. How hard can it be?”

“Right. How about you? Have you been able to work amidst all this mayhem?”

“Oh, sure. Though I did have to redo a bunch of stuff after the computer died.”

“The computer?”

“And my boss wants a meeting. Something about our ‘place in the community.’”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know exactly. But he does play golf with the high school principal. No telling what he’s heard.”

“Great.”

“Don’t worry about it. Just have a good trip. It’ll all be waiting for you when you get home.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of. Maybe I’ll go to Vermont instead.”

“Vermont?”

“That’s where my luggage went.”

“Oh, my.”

“That’s business travel for you.”

“The usual.”

“Right.”

Give me rewrite

When I was an enthusiastic young journalist in the post-Watergate 1970s, a T-shirt was popular with us ink-stained wretches. It showed an old-time reporter -- sleeves rolled up, press card in the band of his fedora -- shouting into a phone: “Hello, sweetheart, give me rewrite!”

That was the way it worked, kids, back in the days before cell phones and laptops. A reporter on deadline called a “rewrite man,” typically a grizzled, cigar-chomping veteran who could type faster than the wind. The reporter “fed” the rewrite desk all the information on the hot story, and the rewrite man fashioned it into a proper newspaper article, on the fly.

Filing a story through rewrite was a sort of magic, and I fear it’s lost forever. These days, reporters can write their own stories, wherever they are, and zip them into the mothership electronically. But some of us remember when a rewrite man could make a reporter look great, recasting excited gibberish into cool prose.

Yes, I am a dinosaur. Thank you for noticing.

Wouldn’t it be great if life had a rewrite man? Someone who could smooth over rough spots, remove awkward moments and recast our everyday babbling into concise, intelligent language. It would be the ultimate do-over, the end to regret. If we filtered our lives through a rewrite desk, we’d always hit our deadlines, make the right choices, impress our friends.

An example: You’re in traffic and another motorist does something exceedingly stupid right in front of you. You lean on your horn, shout curses and make an obscene gesture. Then you recognize the other driver. Worse, he recognizes you. Ouch.

Wouldn’t you love a rewrite man about then? He could change “curses” to “warnings” and “obscene gesture” to “friendly wave.” A potentially dangerous road rage incident becomes a neighborly encounter. And you wouldn’t feel so bad when you bump into that other motorist at church.

A rewrite man could fix a lot of things in the workplace. Let’s say you’re standing around the watercooler with your coworkers, talking about your boss, and you use the term “sniveling jerk” just as said boss comes around the corner. Hello, rewrite? Can you change that to “model citizen?” Or, um, “an inspiration to us all?” Thanks.

Certainly, a rewrite man could help one’s financial situation. Your life story could say you were always careful with your money as you amassed a fortune that you later gave to charity. That sounds so much better than “gambled on the stock market” or “wasted every nickel on liquor and lotteries.”

I could use a rewrite when it comes to parenting. I’d like to be known as “stern but fair” rather than “overprotective lunatic.” But I guess that’s a story that’ll be written by my kids.

A rewrite man could portray me as a “handy do-it-yourselfer type.” Just once I’d like someone to believe I could fix something around the house. Even if the statement required a correction later.

I want my friends to remember me as a witty raconteur who was always “the life of the party.” Think I can get that past the rewrite desk? That would be better than “last time I saw him, he was yarking into a flowerbed.” Friends’ memories can be so selective and cruel.

What a tool

I recently repaired a dripping drainpipe under a bathroom sink. This is remarkable for several reasons:

1) I usually can’t fix anything.
2) Plumbing problems typically make me weep while reaching for the phone and the checkbook.
3) I actually sought, heeded and understood advice from the expert at the hardware store.
4) I didn’t make the problem worse, trying to fix it.
5) The job required no new tools. Or duct tape.

The leak was caused by a simple cracked washer. I replaced the beveled washer, put the drain back together and -- surprise! -- the leak stopped. Since the drain consists of plastic pipes, screwed together by hand, no tools were necessary.

It’s this last item that made the job most unusual. Household repairs generally require knowledge and/or use of tools. For those of us who are unhandy and/or idiots, this often is the sticking point.

Way down in the fine print of Murphy’s Laws, you’ll find this: No matter what household repair you attempt, it will require a specialized tool that you do not own.

We unhandy idiots react to this in different ways. We give up immediately and call a professional who owns the applicable tools and knows how to use them. Or, we try to force the issue, using the wrong tool, which often results in a much higher eventual repair bill. Or, we make yet another trip to the hardware store for the correct tool.

Having the right tool for the job doesn’t necessarily mean the repair will be a snap, of course. It’s still possible to make things much, much worse, particularly if running water is involved. Trust me. But with the proper tool, the home handyman has a fighting chance of success.

He also has a new tool. One that (and I’m pretty sure Murphy covers this somewhere, too) he will never, ever need again.

In this way, long-time homeowners accumulate a vast collection of esoteric tools. Not to mention fasteners and washers and assorted stray parts.

We keep them forever. Because you never know. We might one day need that socket/mallet/jigsaw/crowbar/drill bit/screw extender/stud finder/butt hinge/torque wrench/detonator. And wouldn’t we hate to make yet another trip to the hardware store?

Unless you’re one of those neat freaks who keeps all his tools “organized,” possessing these specialized tools means that every home repair becomes a museum tour through the garage. You go to fetch a simple hammer and find yourself, an hour later, pondering a reverse butterfly ratcheting nut-driver. You probably can’t remember how you use that gizmo. Probably can’t recall why you bought it in the first place. But there it is, among the tools, taking up space, in the way.

This phenomenon isn’t limited to tools, of course. Home offices also accumulate assorted widgets and electronics that seemed absolutely necessary at one time, but now are good only for paperweights.

Go take a look in your kitchen. If it’s like ours, it’s full of specialized choppers, strainers, scrapers, graters and gravy boats that rarely get dusted off. Not to mention foods and spices purchased for particular recipes, then rarely used again. How else to explain shelves overflowing with little jars of fennel seed, cumin and turmeric?

And let’s not even mention the medicine cabinet, crammed full of outdated pills, outmoded cosmetics and dried-out tubes of mystery ointment.

It’s enough to make me hit myself in the head in despair. If I could only find the hammer.

Murphy's Law only scratches surface

Timing is everything, and that's never clearer than when problems arise.

That's why one version of Murphy's Law says: Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong at the worst possible time.

I was reminded of this when the smoke alarms at our home announced they needed new batteries. Wait, "announced" is too polite a term. When our smoke alarms need batteries, they emit a chirp loud enough to wake everyone in a cemetery across town. The startling chirp repeats, ever more frequent and persistent, until somebody by golly replaces those batteries. Or else.

This has occurred three times in the years we've lived in this house. Each time, it's happened in the middle of the night.

Each time, I’ve had to get up, go to an all-night market, buy batteries and replace them before anyone could get back to sleep and/or my wife killed me.

Have I mentioned that our house came with six of these smoke alarms? That they're all wired together somehow, so if only one has a low battery, the others chirp in sympathy? That two of the alarms can only be reached with a ladder? That if you furiously rip one off the wall because you can't stand the noise another second, the others will chirp more?

Anyway, there I was, at 2 a.m., teetering half-asleep on a ladder, replacing batteries and pushing buttons and praying the noise would stop. And I noted once again how things always go screwy at the worst possible time.

You could argue that we bring this problem on ourselves. Clearly, we don't change the batteries frequently enough (like, say, every week). Clearly, I need to study how the smoke alarms work, at a time when I'm not also trying to sleep. At minimum, we should always keep spare batteries on hand.

But such preparation would be tempting fate. If the smoke alarms weren’t going haywire in the middle of the night, it would be something else going wrong, maybe something worse. Like a fire.

Murphy's Law doesn’t begin to cover all the possible variations of inconvenient timing. Here are some suggestions:

Bell's Law: The more important the telephone call, the more likely you'll be unable to answer it in time.

Montezuma's Law: The longer you are on vacation, the greater the chances that one of you will get sick.

Babel's Law: The farther you are from proper health care facilities, the more serious the symptoms will be.

Gates' Law: The worse your boss' mood, the more likely he'll walk up behind you while you're playing solitaire on your computer.

Eveready's Law: Your flashlight will work fine right up to the moment a storm knocks out electrical power to your house.

Heloise's Law: Surprise guests arrive only when your home is at its messiest.

Goodyear's Law: The harder it's raining, the greater your chances of getting a flat tire.

Caterpillar's Law: If you're in a hurry to get somewhere, you will encounter street construction detours. Every time.

Macy's Law: The more you want a product, the greater the odds that the store sold the last one five minutes ago.

Ditka's Law: The more your wife wants you to take her out -- right now -- the better the chances your game will go into overtime.

Brewer's Law: The later the hour, the louder the chirp.

Fixing to go crazy

Brewer's First Law of Possessions: The more stuff you own, the more time and money you spend on repairs.

Most purchases -- anything more complicated than, say, food -- eventually will break. Then you're faced with a crash of decision-making and out-of-pocket expenses. Do you replace the item? Do you call a repairman? Do you repair the item yourself? (Hahahaha.)

Cheap goods get thrown out and replaced. But big-ticket items, such as cars, should be fixed, if possible, so you get the most out of your "investment." This makes good financial sense, but it rarely stops there.

Brewer's Second Law of Possessions: If something breaks in your household, several other items will immediately follow suit.

All your stuff is slowly wearing out. It's a long march from the factory to the landfill, and your stuff is trudging along, corroding and eroding and collecting error messages. Your computer sees your toaster fall dead, and decides it can't push on any longer, either. A toilet smells obsolescence in the air, and the plumbing stumbles. Pretty soon, you're up to your neck in repairmen.

Each household object you accumulate moves you farther along the Time/Money Continuum until you reach the point where the slightest ripple -- a broken coffemaker, say, or a transmission leak -- can result in tsunamis of lost hours and cash.

Which brings us to the Ultimate Theorem of Owning Stuff: Eventually, all your money will go to maintaining the things you already have, which means you can't afford to buy any new stuff. This (along with the size of your garage) proves that the Financial Universe is finite.

All these theories were proved recently at my house as we went through one of those spells where everything seemed to go kerflooey at once.

My minivan, a Ford Lemonstar, needed a new power steering unit (again). The house's water heater sprang a leak. The vacuum in our swimming pool decided that it sucks to be a vacuum, so it stubbornly would only roll backward. A lamp switch in the living room stopped switching. A cell phone got confused and would only talk to itself. Computers lost their minds.

People who believe in astrology tell us that such universal mechanical breakdowns occur when the planet Mercury is in "retrograde." (And wouldn't the "Mercury Retrograde" be a good name for a car?) Others attribute such woeful periods to coincidence or bad luck or Job-like trials of faith. I prefer to think that my stuff is conspiring against me; I'm pretty sure I hear appliances whispering together at night.

I spent a month dealing with plumbers and repairmen and auto mechanics and pool equipment dealers and Technical Assistance people in India. Many hundreds of dollars disappeared in the process, and more of my hair turned gray. The accumulated aggravation no doubt took years off my life.

Some people tackle such everyday problems as if they're no big deal. Some actually enjoy fixing things themselves, and wouldn't dream of hiring a repairman every time something goes wrong. But I'm not the handy type, and I don't want to spend every waking moment of every weekend trying to fix stuff. That would cut into the time I devote to watching football on TV.

(Of all the broken stuff I mentioned above, the one thing I was able to fix was the lamp switch. Expect an electrical fire at any time.)

We spent all our money on repairs, which means we don't have any left for new stuff. And that, friends, is what they mean by the "service economy."

Read this resolution

New Year's resolutions are the triumph of optimism over memory.

We forget how long we stuck to last year's resolutions (average: 3.6 days), and instead look to the future with a positive outlook and the absolute belief that we can change for the better.

Most of us make the same resolutions every year. Eat less, exercise more, earn more, save more, be a nicer person, kick a bad habit, pay better attention to our, you know, whatayacallem, uh, families.

Worthy aspirations all, but the sad fact is that these become our annual resolutions because we fail at them. Again and again.

That's why, this year, I've come up with a new resolution, one that hasn't been tried and abandoned over and over. I'd suggest that Americans everywhere attempt the same. Pick something new and give it a try.

Here's mine: Read the instructions.

I know it doesn't seem like much of a goal. But for me to read the instructions every time requires me to overcome many personal shortcomings:

A) I am a guy.
B) I am a know-it-all.
C) I have no patience.

Why am I this way? I refer you to "A" above.

We guys hate to read instructions, the same way we famously hate to ask directions when we're lost. To do so proves there's something we don't already know.

Better to go through life by dead reckoning than to show any sign of weakness. Better to ignore a problem, in hopes that it will go away on its own, than to consult the instructions and fix it properly.

Here's an example: Recently, our garage door was giving us fits. It has one of those automatic openers, which means we never have to get out in the weather. Punch a button and -- vrr-rrr-rr-rr! -- the door opens or closes, as needed.

One of the great inventions really, right up there with the TV remote control. Until it stops working.

Then, when you try to close it, you get this instead: Punch the button. Vrr-rr. Door stops halfway down. Punch button again. Vrr. Door lowers another foot, then stops. Punch button. Vrr-rr. Door starts going UP. No, no, DOWN, you rotten $*%@! Punch button repeatedly. Vrr. Vrr. Vrr. Door, terribly confused now, moves inches at a time. Up, down, up, down. Finally, catch the door going down and HOLD the button until the door rattles all the way to the ground.

This went on at our house for weeks, until my wife finally got fed up and ordered that I get the garage door fixed. The implication being that if it wasn't fixed when she got home, I would be sleeping out there with the cars.

I went into the house, grumbling, and looked in our household files and found the instructions for the garage door opener. A quick perusal uncovered these facts:

1) This is common problem.
2) It can be easily fixed by two tweaks with a screwdriver.

Five minutes later, the door was working like a new one. All that frustration vanished. And I got to be a hero to my wife. Because I finally bothered to read the instructions.

This solution has arisen repeatedly. The dishwasher. The DVD player. My cell phone. All of these electronic gizmos that drive me crazy can actually enhance my life if I'll learn to operate them by reading the instructions.

So that's my resolution for the new year, and I plan to stick to it. Now I must go. I've got a ton of reading to do in the next 3.6 days.

Another dumb list

I read an article recently called "Dumb Money Moves People Make," which listed stupid things you can do to wreck your home finances.

Most of the "dumb moves" centered on being careless with personal identification numbers or other financial information, leaving one susceptible to identity theft. Very good advice, but that wasn't what grabbed me.

As a writer, I was more interested in the way the article was put together. "Dumb Money Moves" is a pretty catchy way to get the reader's attention, and most people love lists. It's a construction you see all the time:

"Top 10 Dieting Mistakes"
"Twelve Ways Smart Women Sabotage Relationships"
"The 15 Worst Mistakes You Can Make on the Job"
"Twenty Errors to Avoid When Invading a Country in the Middle East"
"Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover"
"Eighty-Seven Stupid Things Guys Say in Bars"

Such lists appeal because they allow us to laugh at the foibles of others while secretly checking our own behavior to see whether we've made any "dumb moves" lately.

Never one to pass up an easy format, I decided to write my own list, pegged to my usual territory: housework and home repairs and working from a home office.

Here, then, are the:

TOP 20 DUMB MOVES YOU CAN MAKE AROUND THE HOUSE

1. Try to "do it yourself," particularly if the job involves electric current and/or power tools. Before you know it, you'll have fewer digits than when you started and/or a hairdo like boxing promoter Don King.

2. Play with fire. Yes, fire is warm and pretty, but one minor slip near the drapes and -- poof! -- you're homeless.

3. Adjust the TV antenna or satellite dish during a lightning storm. Better reception soon will be the least of your worries.

4. Start the wrong kind of home-based business. Some pursuits -- fish storage, fireworks assembly, telemarketing -- are too hazardous for the home, and may violate zoning laws.

5. Any chore involving ladders.

6. Invite over friends who knew you before you were married and who want to regale your spouse with "fun" stories about your wild and crazy dating days. (See "Play with fire" above.)

7. Gullibly believe decorating magazines when they say home improvement projects are "easy" or "fast" or "cheap."

8. Phone sex. Your spouse will find those credit-card bills. Guaranteed.

9. Plant a "cash crop" in your back yard. Your neighbors will rat you out to the proper authorities.

10. Ignore the warnings on powerful cleaning products. Skip the rubber gloves, and your friends soon will call you "Lobster Boy."

11. Allow teen-age boys to live under your roof. The only faster way to bring down property values is to house a randy tomcat.

12. Two words: Indoor trampoline.

13. Carefully file each and every piece of paper in your home office. That's just asking for a tornado.

14. Take out a home equity loan to pay for luxuries or vacations. That little gift to yourself will turn out to be the "gift that keeps on giving" for the next 30 years.

15. Answer the phone when you're in the middle of an argument with your spouse.

16. Answer the door to accept delivery of a subpoena.

17. Answer the door in your underwear.

18. Mow the lawn in your underwear.

19. Run over metal sprinkler heads with the lawn mower. Trust me on this.

20. Start a home business as a "writer."

Get a grip

Sometimes, when working around the house -- doing plumbing repairs or tuning cars or skinning game -- you'll find you simply must have an extra set of hands.

You need someone to hold a stake while you hit it with a hammer. Or someone to point a flashlight. Or someone to steady a metal pipe while you strip its threads.

Parents often enlist their children for this help, but the results of such collaborations are mixed, at best. Let's look at the positives and negatives of using your kids as that extra pair of hands:

The Positives:

--You can get the job done when it might be impossible without assistance.

--Children learn from watching you, and one day might attempt similar tasks themselves.

--Kids become familiar with tools.

--A successful undertaking can raise you in the children's estimation because they'll see you as "competent." For a change.

--Working on a project together provides that all-important "quality time" with your children.

The Negatives:

--Children learn from watching you, and one day might attempt similar tasks themselves. You don't need your 10-year-old trying to fix a toilet, unless you want an indoor swimming pool.

--Kids become familiar with tools. They'll regularly "borrow" from your toolbox. Your tools will go missing. Forever.

--An unsuccessful undertaking proves you're just as incompetent as they always thought.

--Working on a project together gives the child an opportunity to learn many new cusswords when things go wrong. When these words are repeated at school, the parent will be blamed.

While some children are natural grease monkeys who can't wait to get started, most kids don't want to be recruited as extra hands. They're too busy playing video games.

To escape such recruitment, children develop a "learned helplessness" to frustrate parents. For example, a dad who's working under a car may ask the child to stand nearby and hand him tools. The resulting conversation goes like this:

"Hand me that socket wrench."

"Here you go."

"That's a regular wrench. I need the socket wrench."

"Oops. Okay, here."

"That's a crescent wrench. I said socket wrench, socket wrench."

"My bad. Here."

"A monkey wrench? What's the matter with you? Are you on drugs? Why not just hand me a hammer?"

"Here you go."

"I didn't really want a hammer. I want that bleepity-bleep socket wrench that's lying right there at your bleeping feet!"

Eventually, all the tools are under the car with Dad, within easy reach. He doesn't need that extra set of hands anymore. He tells the child, "I hear your mother calling you."

Sometimes, the helplessness is not learned; it just comes naturally. When I was a kid, my father regularly worked on our cars. My job was to "hold the light." I'd point the flashlight right where he showed me. But holding the light is boring. My attention would wander, as would the flashlight beam. Dad spent more time yelling about the light than doing actual repairs.

Invariably, after an hour or so, he'd hear my mother calling.

(There was also that time when I was behind the wheel and he was under the hood and he said, "Wait," and I thought he said, "Hit it," and I cranked the ignition and the engine fan nearly cut off his arm. But that's another story.)

In conclusion, parents should think twice about involving kids in household projects. The results might not be worth the headaches.

One exception should be noted: If the repair involves a computer, you should immediately put the nearest teen-ager in charge. Teens know more about computers than you do. Trust me.

You can always hold the light.

House abuse

A new home is the biggest investment most of us make in our lifetimes, yet we regularly let others slash its value, right under our very noses.

I'm speaking here, of course, of our children.

We wouldn't let our kids play around with our stock certificates or our banking paperwork, but we let them run amok in our houses, doing so much long-term damage, we'll be lucky to make our money back when it comes time to sell.

Yes, the children have to live somewhere. And, yes, they're our responsibility, at least for the first 18 to 27 years. And yes, they don't mean to wreck the place and diminish its resale value.
But accidents happen: Boot holes in sheetrock. Bloodstains on carpet. Ceiling fans pulled out of their fittings by "Tarzan." Exploded toilets. The occasional small fire.

Turn some kids loose in your home and it will be transformed from a domestic showplace into a scuffed, scratched, soda-saturated dump faster than you can say "Martha Stewart." And your investment will be ruined.

Such damage has been much on my mind since we moved to a nearly-new house a few years ago. Our previous homes had been battle-scarred veterans that were well past retirement age. Perfect places, really, for rearing two boys. What was another spill, another chip in the plaster? It gave the house "character."

(This fit with our evolving philosophy on furnishings as well. Before the boys were born, we liked old cabinetry and rickety tables, items picked up in antique shops. But once we had kids, our house became the Place Where Antiques Go to Die. We wised up, and started buying heavy-duty furniture, stuff that could take a beating, with upholstery that would disguise spills and other forms of "character.")

But our latest house came to us in pristine condition, which meant I became a nervous wreck.
Our sons ran through the house, wrestling and crashing and throwing things, all the while dripping chocolate ice cream on the beige carpet, and I anxiously scurried along behind them, begging them to be careful.

The boys call such rambunctious behavior "horseplay." I see it as undercutting our investment.
Look, I tell them, we won't live in this house forever. Given the vagaries of career relocations and the yo-yo real estate market, we'll eventually sell the place. If nothing else, we parents will want something smaller when they go off to college. All of us must take care of the current house so that, someday, we'll get our investment to pay off.

My sons listen carefully to these explanations, nodding along, agreeing with every word. Then they race off to the other end of the house, crashing and wrestling, juggling ice cream and setting small fires.

I try to ignore the noise, but then I'll hear a loud thud against a wall. Or the violent slamming of a cabinet door. Or the thunder of oversized sneakers and the lightning of malicious laughter. Or the startling clank of a dropped toilet seat.

(Why, oh why, must they always slam the toilet seat? Are they mad at it?)

I'm on my feet in a flash, hustling to the other end of the house to put a stop to the playful destruction. The boys will pronounce me "no fun," but they'll halt their house abuse. Then I can go back to the sofa, confident I've protected our investment. Until the next thud/crash/clank/slam.

I'll definitely need to invest in a smaller place by the time the kids go off to college. I think they call it a "padded cell."

Staging area

With home prices in the basement and the economy in the toilet, it's not the best time to sell your house, but circumstances sometimes force a move.

The first step is unloading your current home, and that brings us to Today's Important Real Estate Tip: To sell for a decent price, your home needs to look better than it ever did when you were actually living in it.

Real estate experts call this "staging" the house for sale, and they use the word strictly in a show-business sense, to mean creating a pretend world of order and style.

Basically, it means cleaning the house to within an inch of its life, accomplishing all previously-ignored repairs and making the place look as much as possible like a photograph out of Metropolitan Home magazine.

(When reading Metropolitan Home in the doctor's waiting room, parents may seem to be marveling at the modern, sterile rooms presented there. In truth, here's what they're thinking: "No children in that house.")

Staging your home isn't as easy as it sounds. First of all, your house is filthy. Yes, it is. You may think it's clean, but once you start rearranging the furniture and stowing stuff, you'll find crud you never knew was there. Secondly, you (and your children) have a lot more junk than you think. Thirdly, you'll see your home with fresh eyes, with all its shortcomings: faulty wiring and balky drains and jelly fingerprints and dappled carpet.

You've been living with these shortcomings for years, and likely have gotten where you don't even notice them anymore. But you'll see them now and, if you don't, the potential buyers will.

Selling your house boils down to this: People -- strangers -- come into your home and examine it closely. Your job, as the seller, is to persuade these people that your family does not live like pigs, and that everything is in good working order. You want these strangers to imagine themselves living in your house, arranging their own furniture in your familiar spaces.

If they can picture themselves in your home, they might buy it and you can get back to packing your junk into recently-emptied liquor boxes.

How to properly "stage" your home?

Let's start with the exterior. You want your home to have "curb appeal," which means you must freshen up the outside, tend the grounds, do something about those yellow dandelions that dot the lawn like dropped eggs. If the house's paint is peeling or you've got an old Chevy up on the blocks in the yard, you might need to hire professional help.

Inside, every surface should be cleaned off. Put away your knickknacks and bowling trophies and family photos. Potential buyers want to picture their own stuff on the shelves. If you can somehow get photos of their families, you might want to artfully arrange them somewhere.

The most common approach to hiding junk is to stuff everything into closets. Showing your house becomes a horror movie: "Don't Look in the Closet!" To keep potential buyers from opening closet doors, you may need to employ a basketball-style man-on-man defense. ("Put a body on somebody! Now!")

Once all your junk has been carefully hidden, you can go all-out in the cleaning department, rounding up dust bunnies and scrubbing toilets and scraping grime out of corners.

Work at it hard enough, and your house eventually will be sparklingly clean, and tidier than it's ever been before. The trick becomes keeping it in that condition while people parade through day after day. You thought it was hard to keep the house passably clean -- clean enough to keep the health inspectors off your neck -- wait until you try for Metropolitan Home every day for weeks.

Somewhere during this process, you will have two predictable reactions: 1) Why didn't we keep the house this nice when we were living here? And, 2) Since the current house has turned out so well, maybe we shouldn't move after all.

If you find yourself falling into that trap, take the one sure remedy: Go look in the closets.

Springtime for hardware

Spring is a time of renewal, a time of reawakening after the long, dark winter. And we all know what that means. It's time to tackle those home-repair projects we are not qualified to do.

We're not talking spring-cleaning here. That's a given. As warm weather arrives, many of us (mostly female) feel the urge to refresh and renew, to scrub off the grime, the muddy bootprints, the road salt and dessicated leaves. The rest of us (mostly male) play along, sweeping and scouring, getting the house ready for the onslaught of our children's summer vacation.

Our topic today goes beyond simple cleaning. We're talking about all those home maintenance projects that we put off because it was too cold. We burrowed in through the winter, hibernating like bears, but now warm weather has arrived and it's time to throw open the windows, assemble our tools and hurt ourselves in new and inventive ways.

For instance, my wife and I stripped some horrendous wallpaper in our bedroom and then painted the entire room. The results are splendid and we feel virtuous because we did the job ourselves rather than hiring professionals. And, we'll no longer have nightmares because of that hallucinatory wallpaper.

But -- there's always a "but," isn't there? -- I made a few mistakes. I didn't wear a respiratory mask while scraping and sanding the walls and I paid the price over the next week as I tried to chisel hardened plaster from my sinuses. All the repetitive stretching and bending served as a harsh reminder that I'm aging. And, naturally, I had to make many trips to the hardware store for items I'd overlooked, such as mineral spirits. (I still don't know what mineral spirits are, but we have plenty now.)

Before tackling your springtime home improvements, you should remember some basic rules. These will help simplify your projects and you'll be better prepared. And, if you follow these rules carefully, you'll soon see that you're better off watching TV.

1. Ignore home-decorating and handyman magazines.

Those beautiful remodeling projects pictured in magazines can inspire you to attempt ambitious projects better left unimagined. Refinishing those hardwood floors sounds great, until the power sander leaps out of your hands and climbs the nearest wall. A new deck seems like a good idea until the ninth time you hit your thumb with a hammer.

2. There's a correct tool for every job.

You will not own this tool. Make another trip to the hardware store.

3. Paint can cover up many errors.

It can also cover your carpet when it spills.

4. Wallpaper is the work of the devil. Avoid it at all costs.

5. The use of basic tools can result in injury. But if you really want to spend some time in the hospital, step up to power tools.

6. Solvents, pesticides, herbicides, cleaning solutions, paints, root killers, roofing tar and many other home-improvement compounds are toxic and should be handled with extreme care.
Might as well just kill yourself and get it over with.

7. Avoid ladders.

Falling is scary, and that sudden stop can hurt. Plus, getting 10 or 12 feet off the ground gives you a new perspective on your house. You'll spot more chores to do.

8. Wear gloves.

Those of us who usually sit at computers all day do not have the proper buildup of calluses to protect us from blisters and splinters. Of course, gloves won't help if you insist on hitting your thumb with the hammer.

9. Fasteners -- nails, screws, bolts, etc... -- must be the proper size to do the job.

Make another trip to the hardware store.

10. If something is supposed to move and it won't, spray it liberally with WD-40.

11. If something is not supposed to move and it does, secure it with duct tape.

Those last two rules come from my in-laws -- hardy, self-reliant ranch folk who live 100 miles from the nearest home-improvement superstore. They're forced to do it themselves, and they know the simplest solutions usually are best. Here's one more from them, which has become the byword for all home repair projects in our family:

12. Get a bigger hammer.

Open wide. No, I meant your wallet

I've been thinking a lot recently about the similarities between plumbing and dentistry:

--They're both high-paying jobs with regular hours.

--Outside those regular hours -- in times of emergency -- both professions can charge extra.

--Insurance (homeowners or medical) rarely covers the really expensive jobs.

--Both professions use specialized tools for diagnosis and repair.

--Dentists and plumbers mostly work in dark, wet holes.

--Customers are almost never happy to see them. Except in times of emergency.

These comparisons come to mind because I've had both professions dabbling in my wallet lately. You know your life has gone awry when it's suddenly populated by plumbers and dentists.

(I said this to my wife, who responded, "Better a dentist than an oncologist." Her subtle way of saying: "Stop whining, you big baby." She's right, of course. Plumbing and dental problems are nothing compared to life-threatening illness or other disasters. But given a choice, you'd avoid both plumbers and dentists, wouldn't you?)

And yet, in the aforementioned times of emergency, we owners of plumbing and/or teeth feel like getting down on our knees and thanking the gods of dark, wet holes that someone, somewhere, has the devotion to take up these mystical, lucrative crafts. If you've got a toothache or a major indoor flood, you're willing to pay any price to get an expert on the job.

I've been lucky when it comes to dentists. My regular dentist and the various specialists I've seen have been dedicated professionals who make the procedures as painless as possible. (And, if they're reading this, I'd like that trend to continue. Thank you.)

Most plumbers I've retained have been knowledgable and competent, too. They've maintained a professional image by keeping their shirt tails tucked in, and by explaining in great detail the source of my plumbing woes.

These explanations bring up another similarity between the two professions: There's always the implication that the problem is somehow the owners' fault. With teeth, it's failure to floss or to perform other proper maintenance. With plumbing, it's neglect or ignorance or having children who flush entire rolls of toilet paper at one, er, sitting.

What these professionals fail to remember is that we customers know nothing, and our problems usually are invisible until it's an emergency. Much of our plumbing is underground or otherwise hidden and we never give it a thought until the drains start backing up. The same, more or less, goes for our teeth. Until there's a problem, we choose to assume everything's fine.

Which brings us to the biggest difference between plumbing and dentistry. Most of us -- unless motivated by extreme poverty -- would never attempt to fix our own teeth. But many homeowners attempt to tackle plumbing problems, often making things worse. After all, we've heard all those explanations from plumbers in the past. We own tools. How hard could it be to do a repair ourselves?

An example: I had a bathroom sink with a drain that had been partially clogged for, oh, years. The sink emptied slowly, and refused to respond to all store-bought remedies. I kept thinking, if only I had a snake small enough, I could reach down that drain and break up that clog and life would be good. So I straightened out a wire clothes hanger and slid it down to the U-shaped trap and, sure enough, cleared the drain. I felt like a hero.

A week or two later, another sink began exhibiting the same symptoms. Aha, I thought, I can fix this. I got my straightened coat-hanger, pushed it down to the trap and deftly punched a hole in the rotted pipe below. The pipe responded by bleeding on the carpet.

Now I was faced with an emergency. I studied the situation for a good hour before doing what I should've done in the first place -- I called my dentist.

Kidding! I called a plumber, who came to the house and replaced the leaking pipe in a matter of minutes. He had the tools, he had the know-how and he had the proper parts.

Me? I had a checkbook. And a grateful smile.

Freedom to assemble

Want to chill the typical American male to his very toes? Then utter these three simple words: "Some assembly required."

Furniture and bicycles, toys and stereos, computers and exercise equipment all arrive at our homes these days requiring final assembly. And the average male gets out his tools and muddles through the "instructions" and proceeds to break whatever item he's supposed to be assembling.

This average male is thinking the whole time: "Don't they have someone more qualified to do this? Isn't there someone at the factory who knows how to do the final assembly?" Sure, the furniture (or other item) needs to fold flat for shipping, but wouldn't we all be happy to pay higher shipping costs to get the item in its finished form?

I'm sure some guys love the challenge of "ready-to-assemble" furniture and color-coded computer cables and toys in which the battery compartment is hermetically sealed, but I'm not one of them. And I think most guys fall into my category: Irredeemable klutzes who have no business assembling anything.

We klutzes know who we are. We'd never attempt to, say, create a piece of furniture from scratch. We know we're not gifted with the innate ability to handle tools properly. We stay away from power saws because we don't want the nickname "Stumpy."

But give us a piece of furniture compacted into a three-inch-thick box, and we're gung-ho. After all, the parts are all there, right? The holes are pre-drilled. The box contains instructions written in some semblance of English. Why, any fool could put it together!

Soon, though, we find that we're not just any fool. We're the fools who can't do anything right, the ones for whom "some assembly required" might as well read, "Forget about it, you idiot."

To be fair, it's not entirely our fault. Ready-to-assemble items rarely are truly ready to assemble. If there were truth in advertising, they'd be labeled: "Random assortment of parts that may or may not fit together. You're on your own."

Murphy's Law is hardly adequate to describe the pain and suffering faced by a guy who's trying to "insert tab 'A' into slot 'B' at a 45-degree angle." Here, then, are Brewer's Laws for Ready-to-Assemble Items:

--Tab "A" never fits into slot "B." There's always a ragged piece of plastic that prevents them from sliding together smoothly. Remove that excess plastic, and the tab will wiggle loosely in its slot. Forever.

--Instructions are written in pidgin English by someone from a foreign land, even if the item is labeled "Made in the USA." The foreign land that produces such writers is "Venus."

--Illustrations in the instructions will be so tiny, you won't be able to tell which part goes where without a microscope.

--No matter how carefully you handle the plastic bag full of nuts, bolts, screws and washers, you'll lose at least one of them. The missing hardware will be the one piece of that holds everything else together.

--Missing screws, etc., will be some oddball size they don't carry at American hardware stores.

--Yes, ready-to-assemble furniture comes with pre-drilled holes to make it easier to line up the pieces, but one of the holes will be in the wrong place. It won't be off by much; just enough to make you slowly go insane.

--If tools such as Allen wrenches are included with the hardware, they'll be made of flimsy metal that just begs to be broken. And, they'll be too small to use with your actual hands. If you try to use real tools in their place, the tools will not fit. The next sound you hear will be the stripping of a bolt.

--When pieces don't fit, you'll eventually get mad and try to force them. This will result in permanent damage, both to the item and to your fingers.

--If you succeed in assembling the item, there always will be a few screws, etc., left over. These parts should be discarded immediately before your wife sees them.

Remember these rules when faced with "some assembly required." They won't make it any easier, but they'll remind you that someone, somewhere, is getting a good laugh at your expense.
My money's on those Venusians.

Ladders, adders and TV cameras

"Extreme" sports are all the rage these days, feeding an ever-growing hunger for fast-paced action, sudden violence and crass "reality."

In case you've been living in a nice safe bomb shelter for the past decade, let me explain: "Extreme" sports (also known as X-sports, X-treme sports, X-tra Crispy sports and various other near-names) are those televised athletic "events" that involve elements of danger.

For example, a show called something like "Real Triple-X-Treme Real Sports Challenge of the All-Stars" might feature real juvenile delinquents on skateboards flying high off a plywood "half-pipe" at breathtaking speeds, performing various twirling moves in the air and almost landing in a pit of irritable vipers before being yanked to safety by a bungee cord attached to their feet. The show's shouted advertising slogan will be something like: "WHO'll still be standing at the END?"

This kind of programming is irresistible to a large, mouth-breathing audience composed entirely of those who wear their baseball caps backward. Since that's the perfect market for Zima, motor oil and other such products, these shows have proven to be commercial gold mines.

Naturally, such a restless audience grows increasingly desensitized to fake suspense and "real" mayhem, which means the shows must keep ratcheting up the level of risk so the goobers will keep tuning in. Before long, extreme sports will feature athletes who, at breathtaking speed, fashion their own bungee cords out of irritable vipers before leaping directly into a pit of bubbling lava.

Extreme sports is changing the whole definition of sports. Many of us remember when a "game" usually involved something called a "ball" and was played by professional athletes with recognizable names. Extreme sports feature athletes you've never heard of doing dangerous, unseemly things with strange combinations of equipment, such as a downhill snowboard race through a forest fire with each participant simultaneously lifting weights and playing the nose flute, all while being pursued by angry National Rifle Association members on snowmobiles.

So far, network producers have overlooked one area of real everyday risk-taking that should be considered an extreme sport -- homeownership.

American homeowners regularly take our lives in our hands, working around the house. We use dangerous, unfamiliar tools to attempt repairs we're not qualified to make. We use whirring blades and whipping plastic line to trim our lawns. We perform complicated aerial maneuvers involving aluminum ladders and overhead power lines.

What's riskier than mowing a yard dotted with hidden metal sprinkler heads? Is anything more dangerous than a power saw in the hands of a klutz? What's more thrilling than a fat man climbing a rickety ladder while wearing sandals and trying not to spill his beer?

Such everyday events may seem catastrophic in real life, responsible for property damage, divorce and overcrowded emergency rooms, but let's face it: They'd make good television.

All it takes is a little organization and a video crew, and we could take TV by storm. We could call the show "The Real Extreme All-Star Homeowners Challenge." Plenty of homeowners would volunteer to play, particularly if free beer is involved. We'd stage the events in the participants' own homes, recording their every move with handheld video cameras. Their critical neighbors would eagerly volunteer to be judges.

Participants would race the clock while facing extreme challenges, such as an overflowing toilet with rusty parts flooding a carpeted bathroom. Each barefoot homeowner would be armed with only a monkey wrench and an electric hair dryer. Imagine the possibilities!

Sure, much of the work could be boring, but careful editing would result in clip after clip of homeowners skinning their knuckles and tripping over live wires and doing backflips off parapets while holding TV antennas. That, folks, is entertainment. If you don't believe it, ask your neighbors.

If such basic competition fails to keep our show's audience loyal, we can always elevate the risk and add to the gear involved. Imagine high-speed ladder-climbing by cigar-smoking men carrying buckets of combustible roofing tar and wearing heavy tool belts and funny hats.

Now that's extreme. If that's still not enough, we can always throw in a few vipers. Particularly if free beer is involved.

Plumb crazy

When you work at home, nothing is more terrifying than the tick-tock of a dripping pipe or the squish of wet carpet.

Plumbing problems are every homeowner's nightmare, but they're particularly horrible for work-at-home types because we're expected to fix them. After all, we're here all day. We've got tools. How difficult can a repair be?

A case in point: Recently, one of our toilet tanks developed a drip. I figured I'd put in a new flush valve, seal the fittings tight and -- voila! -- the problem would be solved.

Two hitches with this plan. One, the water line on this particular toilet was made of some inflexible substance -- I'm guessing stone -- so it wouldn't go back where it belonged. And, two, the water line was in a corner, leaving me approximately six microns of space between toilet and wall in which to work.

I did my best, suffering barked knuckles and rug-burned knees and a storm of frustration in the process, but I couldn't make the leak go away. I ended up calling a professional to finish the job.

(An aside: Now, when I order my sons out of the room because I'm watching a video with bad language, they say, "We heard all those words the day you tried to fix the toilet.")

So, as a service to all you who work at home, we now offer an Idiot's Guide to Plumbing. With these basic instructions, you, too, will be able to tackle any plumbing job. And if you fail, you, too, can call in an expert. Just make sure they don't charge extra for laughing at your attempt.

TOILETS

Maybe it's simple wear-and-tear, but toilets seem to be the leading cause of plumbing headaches. Toilets are simple. Water comes in through a pipe, stores in the tank and, when you push the lever, flows into the bowl to push what's already there into the sewer pipes. But if any one of those steps develops a leak or ceases to function, you've got big trouble.

Take a moment right now, while the toilet is working fine, to familiarize yourself with how it works. Lift off the top of the toilet tank and look inside. The first thing you'll notice is that it is exceedingly nasty in there. But don't replace the lid yet. Study the various gizmos inside. Flush the toilet so you can see how it operates.

The tall device where the water enters is called the flush valve. The rubber doodad at the bottom of the tank is called the flapper, and it is connected to the gatsby. When you push the flush handle, the gatsby lifts the flapper and -- faster than you can say F. Scott Fitzgerald -- water flows into the bowl. See how simple?

Attached to the flush valve is the float, a large, bladder-like device on a stick. The float keeps the tank from overflowing. You can adjust the water level by bending the stick. When the stick snaps in two, it's time to make your ninth visit to the hardware store.

SINKS

Sinks are even simpler than toilets, until you try to fix one. Inside the faucet handles are tiny parts called seats and springs. These keep the water from spraying out around the handles. If the faucet develops a leak, replace them. If the faucet still leaks, replace them again. Once you've said enough bad words, call a plumber.

SHOWERS

Many homeowners save on their water bills by replacing their showers heads with more efficient models. Shower heads supposedly screw on and off with ease, but here's a guarantee -- they'll leak when you're done. Better to stick with your existing shower head until the flow is reduced to a trickle. It might take hours to get a decent shower, but better that than a nervous breakdown.

SEWERS

Sewer problems are not for amateurs. If you've developed a severe clog in your sewer line or a sudden sinkhole in your yard, the best step would be to sell the house immediately.

Now that you've been fully briefed, you're ready to tackle any emergency. But keep the plumber's phone number handy, just in case. It helps if you can find one who doesn't laugh much.

Up on the roof

In the spirit of those handy homeowner stories you see in magazines, we'll entitle this entry: "How I Saved $250 on Roof Maintenance, or Sitting Around In My Underwear While Black Gunk Eats Off My Skin."

You flat-roof veterans probably know this syndrome, but it's new to me. Last winter, I moved into my first flat-roofed house, not giving much thought to the maintenance involved. After part of August's torrential rains wound up in my son's bedroom, I decided it was time to get more interested in what's happening up on the roof.

A friendly roofing contractor agreed to fix the leak and gave me simple instructions for maintenance I could do myself, saving $250 now and untold headaches in the future.

So, with a can of plastic roof cement in hand, I ventured up a borrowed ladder in search of cracks around the seal between roofing material and parapet. These cracks occur naturally, the roofer told me, a result of heat and cold. Occasionally, you need to go up on your roof and patch them, just to make sure water doesn't find its insidious way inside.

At first glance, the seal seemed riddled with cracks. But closer inspection found that most of the grooves weren't cracks at all; they were unsightly stretch marks. I decided to cement over all of them. An ounce of prevention and all that.

If we had stronger truth-in-advertising laws, plastic roof cement would be labeled "Sticky Black Gunk." It's the type of product that makes you say "yuck" when you open the can. Like Play-Doh. Or Spam.

I troweled the gunk onto the seal and it went on easily. In fact, it was sort of pleasurable. It was a quiet, cool Saturday morning and I was up among the trees and the chirping birds. I wondered how many other homeowners around the city were up on their roofs, doing the same job. I felt a kinship with them. We should all be up here, I thought, smearing gunk and waving to each other.

The longer I worked, the hotter it got and the less neighborly I felt. After two hours, all the cracks were dutifully smeared over, I was pouring sweat and my hands were covered with black gunk. Which presented a problem: How to get down off the roof without getting gunk on the borrowed ladder and everything else I encountered?

I'd worn ancient jeans with the intention of throwing them out when I was done, so I wiped some of the excess gunk on them and made my way to the ground, trying not to touch anything with my hands. In the garage, I kicked off my shoes and stripped off my filthy jeans and padded into the house in my sock feet to clean up.

Uh-oh. Turns out you can't wash black gunk off your hands. Even with cleanser, which I promptly ran out of anyway. I returned to the garage and (finally) read the instructions on the can. "Clean hands with waterless hand cleaner." Huh? "Caution! Combustible!" Yipes. "Do not take internally!" No problem. "Use protective measures to avoid contact with skin." Big problem.

My wife was out, but expected to return soon. I couldn't go to the store for waterless cleaner with my hands covered with gunk. I couldn't even put on fresh pants. All I could do was sit and wait, holding my sticky hands aloft like a surgeon who's freshly washed.

Twenty minutes later, my wife arrived. She calmly sized up the situation and hurried to the store to get waterless hand cleaner. I sat and waited some more, itching all over and unable to scratch, certain I could feel the black gunk burning my skin. I pictured my hands red and bubbling underneath the evil gunk.

As soon as she returned, I scrubbed off the gunk -- which took half an hour -- to find that my hands were unmarred. I hadn't combusted. I hadn't even gotten the gunk on the furniture or in my hair. Overall, the experience was a success, if you discount the part where I looked like an illiterate dork in front of my wife.

The upshot? I'd survived another homeowner's ordeal. I saved $250. And I get to do it all again next year.