We bought sliding mirror-doors for our hallway, to cover the coats and other miscellianeous stuff hanging from the hangers. Besides hiding the coats from prying eyes, it also serves double function of making the hallway better illuminated and increasing the area covered by mirrors in our household by about an order of magnitude.
As usual, my father-in-law was supposed to come install them, and I was supposed to help him out. Reason being that while I might know technical stuff, I'm not that good when it comes to doing these household things, like dismantling the kitchen and stuff (don't ask). So usually my father-in-law handles those, while I help him out. And this wasn't an exception.
So, we installed the doors, with me helping out. But after we tried them out, they just wouldn't work as advertised. They scraped the rail they were supposed to glide on, and they wouldn't work smoothly. I thought that we had installed them wrong, while my father-in-law (who has installed such doors in the past) claimed that "It's installed like it's supposed to be, I have no idea why they do this!". He then stormed to the living-room and started watching TV.
So I was left there with a screwdriver in one hand, and the instructions on the other. I looked at the instructions, and I looked at how the doors had been assembled. It took me about 20 seconds to notice the problem, and another 2 minutes to fix it. End-result: doors that glide smoothly. When I mentioned that "Hey, I managed to find and fix the problem, and the doors are working now", all I got was "Fine!" from the living-room. I think he was a bit embarrassed or something. Am I gloating? You bet!
Hey, I never claimed that this would be an interesting or somehow inspirational piece of blogging! If you REALLY want to draw some ancient wisdom from this, it would be "the fact that someone has age, wisdom and experience, does not guarantee that he knows what he's doing. That whippersnapper son-in-law might actually have the answers you are seeking.".
4 comments:
Ah Tapio... he's from the old skool of 'instructions are for wusses'. I had a similar experience jump-starting a car where no one would listen to me and a power surge ruined the electrics of one of the cars. Do you want to come over and fix our sliding shower door? My dad is constantly 'fixing it' but never does a great job.
Funny thing is that we (or rather, he) tried to follow the instructions (one sheet of paper with three pictures to illustrate the installation) :). Granted, the instructions weren't the best possible, but still.
Since I'm now the expert door-installer (and modest as well!) I would be happy to fix your doors :). But the distance I would have to travel is "a bit" extreme...
You owe me a visit anyway...
Well, yes I do. I have just been thinking of a good excuse to visit you, and I guess these sliding doors will have to do :).
just kidding. I have made it my life's mission to visit Oz one day. It's one of those places that you just have to visit at least once.
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