This weekend, I saved myself roughly $75 by repairing a set
of blinds all by myself.
And when I say blinds, these were no ordinary blinds. Nay!
These mammoth slats were eight feet across if they were an inch. And unwieldy
suckers, too. Many a man’s spirit had been tangled and choked to death by the
terrible taut threads that raised and lowered the mighty contraption, like the
boom holding a sail on a ship in a storm. But one of these ropes had frayed and
snapped with over use, like a diabetic clerk at a candy factory. The machine
had thrown a cog. And the dream of blocking or diffusing light with the turn of
a wrist was nary a memory.
Three paths lay before me:
1.
Custom order a new set of blinds for $150
2.
Hire a repair person to come out and repair the
blinds for $70 plus materials
3.
Do the job myself
Most people would choose 1 or 2. But I’m not most people. My
parents* instilled in me an unwavering belief in my ability to figure out and
solve a problem, given enough time and resources.
In this case, I hopped on the Internet, ordered some 1.4mm
nylon cord, lived a fulfilling life until the cord arrived, stripped out the
broken cord, threaded the new cord through the slats, tied off both ends and
finished in about a half hour total. If we factor in materials ($7) and time
($70), I saved $150 by not replacing the blinds and $75 by fixing them myself.
Add to that the feeling of accomplishment ($314,767) and a job well done ($685,
233) and I’d say that “what it’s like” feels like a million bucks.
*That Dad Guy and That Mom Lady