Life in Geezerville: The Do It Yourself Edition

Remember when we were young and we could do "things" like use a screwdriver or hammer a nail? Nowadays, that type of dexterity is low on the list of what we can do. I have some recent examples from the 'hood, and I'm sure you can give me more. For Christmas we were given a fancy-dancy "Ring" doorbell. My niece said it was an important safety item and we would enjoy it a lot. Sounded good to us. We forgot that we would have to install it. That however turned into a community event. Since we were the last folks in the 'hood to have a Ring Doorbell, we had local experts who had installed their doorbells. There were four fellows on our porch telling each other what needed to be done next.  Soon the wives came out, then Delta who was walking her dog from her golf cart came over...and we had a neat gab-fest in the middle of the cul-de-sac. We were all discussing the benefits of the Ring doorbell, how my doorbell installation was different from any of the others; then we talked about kids and grandkids and baking bread...it was a great time. BUT it was not installing the doorbell. We left the project "hanging" that night. We had fun but we did not have a  doorbell. I wrote a note on the door saying "please knock."As you can tell, geezers get distracted quite easily.

The next morning, I called the help line at Ring and talked to Charlie in the Philippines. He was most helpful and together, he and I got it working--kind of. I took down the please knock sign. But when a friend rang the Ring, it did not ring inside the house nor on my mobile phone. I put the please knock sign back up and called a local electrician. He just left--the doorbell was installed wrong, as was the indoor chime. In less than  20 minutes he got the whole system working, sync-ed to my mobile, and all was good. Before Geezer-hood, we could have done that without a hitch. Post Geezer-hood, impossible. Do it yourself has a whole new meaning in Geezerville.

Another friend wanted to install a timer on his bathroom fan. The fiasco started with finding the breaker box in an impossible place; finding the correct breaker to turn off; taking out the old switch and installing the new switch. He was thankful YouTube had a video of the exact product. The electrician who put up the 2 minute video explained that it was easy. Don't you hate it when you are told something is "easy" and you can't do it? It might have been easy, but our friend does not have steady hands any more. His wife has long fingernails (but her hands are steady). The combination of long fingernails and shaky hands is not good. Again a call to the electrician and voila! The timer was installed in less than 2 minutes, just like the video. One more example on how YouTube can solve all of your problems.

Us geezers have been independent for four score and several years (to borrow a phrase from Lincoln). We are not used to asking for assistance as we've always done everything ourselves. We did what needed to be done because we could always do it faster and with less hassle. Something happened. Time and tide took away our dexterity along with our close up vision. What was easy then, is not easy now. We still know the process, but the skills are not there anymore. Geezers need to remember that DIY is something we don't do anymore. We call electricians, gardeners, mechanics, handymen, and the like. We ever so nicely ask for their help. It's all good. All we have to do is remember that DIY now stands for Don't do it yourself. So, we'll stick to our MLC cars, green hair, and have helpers on speed-dial. Life is good in Geezerville.