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Making do is what I do best. I see no reason to bog myself down doing things the so-called "right way" when "making do" accomplishes the same thing with far less frustration.
Besides, folks usually find fault no matter what. So if the easy road and the hard road both drive you to the same destination -- Complaints City -- why not choose the less troublesome route and enjoy the ride?
Oh sure, when an errant car damaged a panel on the garage door, I could have gone through all the anxiety and inconvenience of dismantling the door, measuring out an exactly-matching pane, reassemblying the monstrosity and rehanging the whole shebang. With the usual complications, a project like that would have taken three or four days.
Instead, I dug a hunk of plywood out of the scrap pile and nailed it over the hole. Five minutes. The door still works and the raccoons are kept outside.
I made do.
Oh sure, a person with whom I share the home might note that it doesn't look pretty. Well, had I fixed it the "right way," my guess based on past experience is that my handiwork still wouldn't look pretty, and the door probably wouldn't work anymore. Trust me, making do makes better sense for more reasons than ease.
It's what my college education taught me. My roommate and I couldn't afford to go out and buy fancy bookcases to outfit our dorm. But we could rustle up old orange crates, discarded cement blocks, scrap hunks of wood, empty coffee cans and the odd broken basket or two. It was like working with the Dumpster version of a LEGO set.
Our cobbled shelves looked pretty awesome, even if no one ever asked us to build shelves for their rooms.
I've never forgotten the old college try.
When I discovered that the kitchen faucet leaked, I knew what the "right way" would command: Replace the gasket, tighten the connections, or possibly install a whole new faucet and plumbing. It wasn't a risk I wanted to undertake. So I made do.
I took a wash rag, folded it twice, set it on the divider between the two sinks, then aimed the faucet overtop the rag. At that thickness, it pretty well muffled the drip-drip-drip sound that crashed through the night. And the pipes never froze in the winter. It made do.
Lately, I've heard some grumbling that suggests instead of being smart, I'm merely lazy. I knew exactly what to do to quell those voices. I plugged the jack from the headphones I'd taped together into the sound system I assembled from parts picked up at various yard sales and cranked the volume. I no longer heard the voices.
Making do is what I do best.
— Ask Cole for handyman advice at burtseyeviw@tribtoday.com or on the Burton W. Cole page on Facebook.