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Health & Fitness

A Home Improvement, Urgently Needed

For whom the bell tolls? Sometimes it doesn't toll at all.

Whenever Mrs. Banks and I discuss which pending household projects are most urgent, we almost always disagree. She puts a high priority on anything that involves fixing potential structural problems or, absent that, interior painting. I tend to vote for whatever sounds easiest and least expensive. She’s learned to ignore me, which has done wonders for both the marriage and the house. But this time, we're of one mind on Job 1: fixing the front doorbell. Who knows what happened, but even the dog doesn’t hear it anymore. If the issue were just that we don’t realize when the mailman’s at the door waiting for one of us to come sign for an important letter or a package of life-saving medicine, that would be one thing. But now dinner can sometimes hang in the balance. The other night the man from Joe’s Pizza had to actually telephone us from his car to tell us he’d arrived. He didn’t seem upset, but why take chances? There’s no sense in getting blacklisted from the place. Have you had their hot-oil pie? 

You’re wondering why, if the problem is so pressing, I don’t just break down and fix the darn thing myself. Good question. As electrical contraptions go, a doorbell is no more complicated than the devices elementary schools use to demonstrate the basics of electricity to fourth graders in intro-to-science classes. A wire. A switch. A magnet. Some current. Ding! (Now that I think of it, maybe I should go hire a fourth-grader.) I'd try to fix the bell on my own, but happen to be a member of the brotherhood of New Canaan homeowners who’ve vowed we’ll never undertake home repairs on our own. (We've somehow convinced ourselves we're protecting property values.) My reluctance in particular has partly to do with my own inertia, combined with a certain level of klutziness I’ve learned to not underestimate. But the main reason I prefer to leave these things to the professionals is the conversation I imagine I might otherwise have with the buyer’s home inspector when Mrs. Banks and I eventually sell. “I don’t exactly know why the hot and cold water taps are backwards,” I’d lie to him him. Or, “The bookshelves must have gotten that way as the house settled.” “Actually, it’s pretty common around here to only light half the basement.” It would be agonizing. In my worst nightmare, the fellow would be so appalled by what he finds that he’d insist the buyers walk away from the deal for the sake of his professional reputation.

Unfortunately, I’m not quite sure what the alternative is. We have a painter for the painting and a plumber for plumbing, but there’s no such thing as a professional doorbell-repairman. We could call our electrician, I guess, but I worry he’d be insulted that we were asking him to take on a task so far beneath his training and ability—as if we were ducking into the kitchen at Le Bernardin to ask for a quick chili cheese dog, to go. I suppose I could put an ad on Craigslist, but this is New Canaan. You know.

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So I’m stuck. I don’t mind missing the odd the registered-mail delivery or FedEx package that needs to be signed for. Those things tend to get to us sooner or later. But on pizza night in our house from now on, I’m determined to be vigilant: you’ll find me at dinner hour standing in the kitchen peering out the window, waiting for the food to arrive. This is dinner we’re talking about! It simply doesn’t make sense to take any chances.

Follow Conrad at @banksconrad

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