Who do you call when you need to change the bulbs or your toilet is leaking at home? I call my son. If my son is travelling, I call one of my nephews who is as close to me as my son. I only call experts when neither of them can fix the problems. Every house needs at least one handyman. If you are lucky to have more handymen, you are indeed blessed.
It is convenient to have someone who can do light “fix-up tasks” at home. Changing the bulbs is not difficult if you are not scared of heights and know what to do. But changing the electricity sockets is more dangerous and needs real expertise.
I once called up many contractors, one after another, to change just one electricity socket in my house. The contractors came from a respectable list supplied by a friend who knows a lot about electricity. None of the contractors I called could come to my house to change the socket. After a week, I decided to enlist the help of a colleague who worked part time as an electrician and had undergone the relevant training. He came immediately and I was so pleased with his work and attitude that I happily rewarded him fruitfully for his efforts.
Fixing a leaking toilet should be as easy as ABC for students who took the subject called “Kemahiran Hidup (KH)” in Bahasa Malaysia or “Living Skills” in English. I have two nieces who live with me and took the subject in secondary school.
“Living Skills” teaches students how to perform useful repair jobs in the house including fixing leaking toilets or taps and replacing bulbs. But alas, both my nieces are useless at home when it comes to “fix-up tasks” at home. I guess they never paid attention in the class and had no interest in the subject. I wonder how they managed to pass the subject in school.
You need a handyman at home because you cannot keep on calling outsiders to fix simple problems at home. When outsiders come, they charge exorbitant fees. I remember paying someone RM50 just to check whether my roof was leaking.
That was years ago. Now, with the passage of time and implementation of the Goods and Services Tax, such fees must have gone up, too. Besides simple repair jobs like fixing a leaking toilet and changing the bulbs, I discover every house also needs someone to catch rats. In my house, if there is a rat trapped in the bathroom, my son and my nieces call me.
They are all scared of rats. Deep inside, I want to tell them I am scared of rats, too. But if I do not catch the rodents, who will? The rodents have to be caught and killed to prevent more rats from coming to the house. Catching a rat is no fun.I do not enjoy it.
Recently, I apologised profusely to a rat as I killed it with a brick.”Why did you have to come to the house?,” I asked it repeatedly. That was the third rat to come into my house in a fortnight. I know a friend who releases the rats he catches in his house in a forest far away. He does not believe in killing anything, even pests.
The rats are, apparently, proliferating in my garden which is overgrown with weeds. I used to be a devout gardening enthusiast until I discovered Korean dramas. I guess changes are part of life. We love different things at different times in our lives. Inspired by the Korean dramas, I am now making my own sushi for dinner in the office.
I still love gardening and have not forgotten the joys it brings me. Maybe you will see me toiling in my garden again on my day off.
