… or how NOT to fix a garage door.
So, I stayed over at Lady Baggins’ house last Wednesday night, as I didn’t have to work Friday (went to see The Dead in Atlanta!!!). Anyway, as we were entering the garage, she pressed the button to open the garge door. It made it about half way up and then - BANG - one of the springs that hold the door open popped. The garage door stopped, the door opener stopped and there she was wondering what to do. I said no problem, and pulled the little red handle on the door opener to free it from the garage door and slid the door the rest of the way up. Told her to park outside that night, as I woldn’t be back that night to fix it. She asked why she couldn’t just open the door by hand. I said other than the fact that it will stick on the door opener again, the door is heavy and it can’t be lifted by yourself.
This is important that I said this to her. I’ll repeat it. The door is heavy and it can’t be lifted by yourself.
Went to the show, made it back in one piece and straight and sober. Slept all day Friday and then headed to our favorite home improvement mega mart to get a set of matching springs. Got back to her house, and we managed to get the door up. Now mind you, that the door is only being held up by one spring. But it IS staying up. Lady Baggins goes inside to watch Da Boy.
It was at this point that normal brain function ceased to occur.
I positioned the stepladder under the good spring and decided to change it out first. I somehow got the spring off the catch. At this point I would like to remind you that the door is heavy and cannot be lifted by yourself. Especially from a 90 degree angle with one arm. The next part went in slow motion. The spring yanked me. I let go (the synapses picked a great time to start firing) and the door went rolling down the track. It hit the floor with a loud echoing bang that was heard through the entire neighborhood. Accompanying the bang was the sound of glass shattering. Shattering would not describe it. Exploding would be more like it. I saw every piece of glass glinting in the sun as they tumbled over and over in their parabolic descent to the ground. The bang and the glass was loud. The silence that followed after was deafening and served to punctuate the bang.
Suddenly, the silence was broken by the sound of fierce explicatives. I was stringing them together in record lengths and never before heard of combinations.
Lady Baggins appeared over my shoulder. She saw what had happened and asked if I was OK. I checked myself out and I was, indeed, OK. My pride was bruised from doing such a stupid thing, but physically I was OK. She had also had the good sense to materialize out of nowhere with a beer in her hand, just for me.
Cleaned up the glass, managed to change out the springs with her help, hooked the garage door opener back up and tried it out. It worked better than before. The glass was replaced the next day by me with no problems and the brain continued to function as per norm.
I tried not to do any repair work for Lady Baggins this weekend… “try” being the operative word. But that is another tale.