Thursday, September 15, 2011

In at least one area, I'm "The Guy." It seems.

Got a call from my neighbor D. "I need to put a new voltage regulator in my generator. Can you come help?"

D&L have laid so many obs on me over the years that if they needed somebody to prance naked down Main Street waving a pink feather boa, I'd have to work very hard to find reasons why I'm not the guy for the job.

*shudder*

Since I spent a year and a half fixing generators when I first came to the desert, I really was the guy for this one. And I really do owe them big time. So I got in the Jeep.

But I admit I was a little surprised by the request. D can do anything, and much better than I can. He's a fantastic finish carpenter. He builds houses - large, elaborate houses - with bags of dirt and bales of straw. He makes his own stucco, fergoshsake. He's an artist.

And replacing the voltage regulator in a Champion generator is, like, two bolts. You adjust the output voltage with a little screwdriver. It's nothing. He acted like I'd presented a proof for a Unified Field Theory.

Flattering. Also a little perplexing. But it was good to be able to do something for him, for a change.

4 comments:

LJH said...

I'm sure that was, like all of your posts, interesting, informative, amusing or all of the above. However, I was struck with the Main-Street-pink-feather-boa-naked-on-one-leg visual and could read no further.

Will make an appointment for therapy in the morning.

Mayberry said...

I am amazed myself at times what things perfectly capable "can't" do. But sometimes even I am intimidated by a job I KNOW I can do, but have never done before. Usually a couple beers overcomes my hesitation and I dive right in. Sometimes ya gotta knock out that nagging little bastard in the back of your mind in order to forge onward. Or call a friend you know can do the job : )

Mayberry said...

BTW, LMAO at LJH. There, I got my "text speak" for the day : )

MamaLiberty said...

Maybe, just perhaps, he wanted to help you not feel so overwhelmingly obligated. And I'm sure he had other things to do with the time, so you WERE doing him a favor.

And sometimes friendship doesn't need explanations. Sometimes it just is.

Namaste, Joel. :)