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--- lesson 46 Do it yourself |
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--- Listen to the tape then answer the question below. |
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--- Did the writer repair his lawn mower in the end? why/why not? |
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So great is our passion for doing things for ourselves, that we are becoming increasingly less dependent on specialized labour. |
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No one can plead ignorance of a subject any longer, for there are countless do-it-yourself publications. |
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Armed with the right tools and materials, newlyweds gaily embark on the task of decorating their own homes. |
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Men, particularly, spend hours of their leisure time installing their own fireplaces, laying out their own gardens; |
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building garages and making furniture. Some really keen enthusiasts go so far as to build their own computers. |
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Shops cater for the do-it-yourself craze not only by running special advisory services for novices, |
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but by offering consumers bits and pieces which they can assemble at home. |
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Such things provide an excellent outlet for pent up creative energy, but unfortunately not all of us are born handymen. |
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Some wives tend to believe that their husbands are infinitely resourceful and can fix anything. |
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Even men who can hardly drive a nail in straight are supposed to be born electricians, carpenters, plumbers and mechanics. |
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When lights fuse, furniture gets rickety, pipes get clogged, or vacuum cleaners fail to operate, |
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some woman assume that their husbands will somehow put things right. |
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The worst thing about the do-it-yourself game is that sometimes even men live under the delusion that they can do anything, even when they have repeatedly been proved wrong. |
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It is a question of pride as much as anything else. |
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Last spring my wife suggested that I call in a man to look at our lawn mower. |
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It had broken down the previous summer, and though I promised to repair it, I had never got round to it. |
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I would not hear of the suggestion and said that I would fix it myself. |
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One Saturday afternoon, I hauled the machine into the garden and had a close look at it. |
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As far as I could see, it needed only a minor adjustment: |
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a turn of a screw here, a little tightening up there, a drop of oil and it would be as good as new. |
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Inevitably the repair job was not quite so simple. |
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The mower firmly refused to mow, so I decided to dismantle it. |
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The garden was soon littered with chunks of metal which had once made up a lawn mower. |
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But I was extremely pleased with myself. |
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I had traced the cause of the trouble. |
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One of the links in the chain that drives the wheels had snapped. |
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After buying a new chain I was faced with the insurmountable task of putting the confusing jigsaw puzzle together again. |
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I was not surprised to find that the machine still refused to work after I had reassembled it, |
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for the simple reason that I was left with several curiously shaped bits of metal which did not seem to fit anywhere. |
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I gave up in despair. |
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The weeks passed and the grass grew. |
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When my wife nagged me to do something about it, I told her that either I would have to buy a new mower or let the grass grow. |
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Needless to say our house is now surrounded by a jungle. |
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Buried somewhere in deep grass there is a rusting lawn mower which I have promised to repair one day. |
