We have wall-to-wall carpet, which we hate, but we always say we're going to replace it with laminate...next year. (Our son likes the carpet so his room gets to stay carpeted.) Meanwhile, our car battery seems to have crapped out, but it's still under warranty, which is great! And now I have an excuse not to go and get my first regularly scheduled mammogram because I don't want to deal with any doctor shit until I have my good car back in a few weeks.
I'm a bit of a hypochondriac so I've been fairly sure I only had six months to live for the last thirty years. (Ever since puberty, in fact.) I think on some level I would like to be able to tell everyone it's all over, they can't expect anything from me. The idea that I have to live with uncertainty for another forty years or so is horrifying to me.
Reading your essay gave me another panic attack, thanks a lot! =p
I’m dying 💀. But if you have to deal with cat piss again 1) get My Pet Peed. Best stuff for cleaning cat urine (and I’ve used literally everything). 2) instead of bleach, you would want to paint the floor boards with Zinsser- the only thing that will get rid of the smell short of replacing them.
I hate it when something goes wrong with the electronic aspects of the modern home. Even the simplistic debug is more complex than one wishes upon one’s worst enemy. Reminiscent when I ran a computer center. Difference was, I had staff and got paid big bucks for maintaining its operation (up time). At my age, I don’t need the hassle.
But the “cat pee” is another matter all together. You of course hit upon the solution, enzymes are necessary to deactivate/break down the pee. However, cat pee is pretty potent. That you didn’t sense initially the problem is *itself* a problem. You, as pet owners, have become desensitized to the oder of your animal(s). I can only imagine what visitors to your home might have thought upon entering—assuming you do some entertaining as such.
I have dogs who are crated and sleep in the bedroom at night. This allows us to keep an eye on them and they alert less during the night—of course when they do, you’d best check things out. To that effect, one can always release them and let them handle the situation as they see fit. ;-)
However, that’s a lot of smell in a smallish room and it is noticeable whenever one leaves and returns. To this effect I take special care to air out the bedroom and change the dog pillows and such daily. I prefer to have no one pointing to my smelly house as proof of “losing it” in old age.
Just another burden that occurs at my stage of life I guess.
What's interesting to me is that you have that handyman, Mr Fix it, do it all capability that used to be common, ( I have it in spades), but seems to be entirely absent in the youngest generations. With them, if something breaks, they throw it away and buy another one. I could probably start in stock a combo television and vacuum cleaner store off the stuff that shows up in the dumpsters around my apartment complex needing only a switch replacement or something equally basic and simple
Thanks for writing this piece. It's good encouragement to, well, be a man and spend the time after work doing maintenance and supporting one's family. I have found that there is a strong temptation is to treat my post-work time purely my own and spend it playing video games. After all, I worked all day and completed the 60 mile commute each way, and so its really easy to selfishly internally justify my then doing nothing but drinking beer and shooting aliens until I have to go to bed. So it's useful to have an an example to remember and aspire to, thanks.
Only major mistake: you should have taped one end of the new cable to over end of the old cable and just pulled the new one in as you pulled out the old one.
Bukowski talks about this: "It’s not the large things that send a man to the madhouse. Death he’s ready for, or murder, incest, robbery, fire, flood… No, it’s the continuing series of small tragedies that send a man to the madhouse… not the death of his love but a shoelace that snaps with no time left."
Normally that's a pretty good plan but the presence of other cables and random obstructions behind the wall made it a no-go for this particular cable, it got jammed up almost immediately. What I actually had to do is more complicated than in this retelling and was even more of a pain than I'm relating here.
Update: I showed this to my wife, and she thought you were really funny ("I literally lol'd multiple times"). Congrats on this significant achievement (she has never laughed at any of my substacks, I assure you)
The moral of this story seems to be less “nothing is ever easy” and more “only an idiot would own a pet”.
"A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing."
We have wall-to-wall carpet, which we hate, but we always say we're going to replace it with laminate...next year. (Our son likes the carpet so his room gets to stay carpeted.) Meanwhile, our car battery seems to have crapped out, but it's still under warranty, which is great! And now I have an excuse not to go and get my first regularly scheduled mammogram because I don't want to deal with any doctor shit until I have my good car back in a few weeks.
I'm a bit of a hypochondriac so I've been fairly sure I only had six months to live for the last thirty years. (Ever since puberty, in fact.) I think on some level I would like to be able to tell everyone it's all over, they can't expect anything from me. The idea that I have to live with uncertainty for another forty years or so is horrifying to me.
Reading your essay gave me another panic attack, thanks a lot! =p
I’m dying 💀. But if you have to deal with cat piss again 1) get My Pet Peed. Best stuff for cleaning cat urine (and I’ve used literally everything). 2) instead of bleach, you would want to paint the floor boards with Zinsser- the only thing that will get rid of the smell short of replacing them.
I’m sympathetic. You touched upon two things.
I hate it when something goes wrong with the electronic aspects of the modern home. Even the simplistic debug is more complex than one wishes upon one’s worst enemy. Reminiscent when I ran a computer center. Difference was, I had staff and got paid big bucks for maintaining its operation (up time). At my age, I don’t need the hassle.
But the “cat pee” is another matter all together. You of course hit upon the solution, enzymes are necessary to deactivate/break down the pee. However, cat pee is pretty potent. That you didn’t sense initially the problem is *itself* a problem. You, as pet owners, have become desensitized to the oder of your animal(s). I can only imagine what visitors to your home might have thought upon entering—assuming you do some entertaining as such.
I have dogs who are crated and sleep in the bedroom at night. This allows us to keep an eye on them and they alert less during the night—of course when they do, you’d best check things out. To that effect, one can always release them and let them handle the situation as they see fit. ;-)
However, that’s a lot of smell in a smallish room and it is noticeable whenever one leaves and returns. To this effect I take special care to air out the bedroom and change the dog pillows and such daily. I prefer to have no one pointing to my smelly house as proof of “losing it” in old age.
Just another burden that occurs at my stage of life I guess.
What I've described here is only the tip of the iceberg for how complicated my AV setup is
What's interesting to me is that you have that handyman, Mr Fix it, do it all capability that used to be common, ( I have it in spades), but seems to be entirely absent in the youngest generations. With them, if something breaks, they throw it away and buy another one. I could probably start in stock a combo television and vacuum cleaner store off the stuff that shows up in the dumpsters around my apartment complex needing only a switch replacement or something equally basic and simple
Sorry -- what is this "TV" of which you write? It's something from the last century, right? Do people still own such things?
Thanks for writing this piece. It's good encouragement to, well, be a man and spend the time after work doing maintenance and supporting one's family. I have found that there is a strong temptation is to treat my post-work time purely my own and spend it playing video games. After all, I worked all day and completed the 60 mile commute each way, and so its really easy to selfishly internally justify my then doing nothing but drinking beer and shooting aliens until I have to go to bed. So it's useful to have an an example to remember and aspire to, thanks.
Only major mistake: you should have taped one end of the new cable to over end of the old cable and just pulled the new one in as you pulled out the old one.
Bukowski talks about this: "It’s not the large things that send a man to the madhouse. Death he’s ready for, or murder, incest, robbery, fire, flood… No, it’s the continuing series of small tragedies that send a man to the madhouse… not the death of his love but a shoelace that snaps with no time left."
This is your nomination for the prestigious Hero Dad of Substack award
I was holding my breath waiting to get to the part where you realised it had gone into the floorboards.
Is it for me to ask why not just tie a line to the old cable you were pulling out and then you could have used that to pull the new one through?
Normally that's a pretty good plan but the presence of other cables and random obstructions behind the wall made it a no-go for this particular cable, it got jammed up almost immediately. What I actually had to do is more complicated than in this retelling and was even more of a pain than I'm relating here.
Been there, done that. Gave up and bought some slimline conduit and stuck it to the wall! Job's a good 'un.
Phew.
Electrical tape, end to end, and silicone lube or dish soap.
Very good and oh-so-true.
Glad your blood didn’t come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs over some cat piss!
Update: I showed this to my wife, and she thought you were really funny ("I literally lol'd multiple times"). Congrats on this significant achievement (she has never laughed at any of my substacks, I assure you)
Well it's always easier to make somebody else's wife laugh
Brilliant piece
This is a familiar vibe