Chris Johnson: When the disposal went out, she saw the light

Admit it: There's hardly anything in life more exciting than a garbage disposal.

OK, maybe there are a few things -- such as jogging, watching people jog, listening to people talk about jogging, listening to Dr. Ben Carson talk about when he used to jog as a young teenager. Well, on second thought, perhaps everything is more exciting than a garbage disposal.

But it was standing over a garbage disposal that I had an epiphany and realized that in 45 years I haven't come very far in the area of home repair.

After our garbage disposal went kaput -- becoming the 27th machine or appliance in the past few months to do just that -- we found the exact same model at a home improvement retailer. My wife bought it, and I came up with the plan that we would jointly undertake a replacement operation when I got home.

Such an operation, she knew, could result in the best-case scenario of a garbage disposal that looked adequate but did not actually dispose of anything except patience or the worst-case scenario of the complete destruction of our entire house. So, as she waited for me to come home, she came up with a brilliant idea -- namely to not wait for me.

I should know how to do dang near anything around the house. I mean, when I was a kid, my dad built houses for a living. And he repaired everything that ever went awry at our houses through the years. And I helped.

Well, I held the light -- or when he felt like I was making major strides with the flashlight, I got to sweep up the mess left behind. But I usually stunk at just holding a flashlight and rarely got promoted to broom duty. Here is a transcript of my dad talking to me during every home repair.

"Here, hold this. No, this way! Not in my eyes, dang it! How 'bout shining it where I'm working? I'm not done yet! Quit doing that! It's not a

toy! Just hand it here!"

You would think that I would pick up some sort of construction or home improvement skills along the way, but no. I think I'm too right-brained. Some people would look at a broken garbage disposal and say, "Here's your problem: This seal here is cracked." I look at a broken garbage disposal and just wonder if broken is too harsh a term. Seems a bit judgmental. Maybe it's just a differently-abled disposal. Before he leaped from the Flint River bridge, my shrink told me, "You're not right-brained; you're yonder-brained."

Even in seventh-grade shop class, my birdhouse was a complete failure. I put it in one of our backyard trees and some birds from the next tree built a new home next to it as a charity project. They called it Birds Against Blight.

So, when I got home last week and found my wife with her head under the sink, I knew she was either trying to replace the garbage disposal herself or was doing a terrible job hiding from me.

"I can see you," I said.

"Well, I can't see anything," she said. "Hold a flashlight."

"OK."

"No, this way! Not in my eyes, dang it! How 'bout shining it where I'm working? I'm not done yet! Quit doing that! It's not a toy! Just hand it here!"

Thankfully, she not only fixed the thing, but afterward she showed much more faith in my abilities than my dad used to:

"OK, now, how 'bout grabbing a broom?"

Connect with Chris Johnson at Facebook.com/KudzuKidWriting, Twitter @kudzukid88 or kudzukid88@gmail.com.

This story was originally published November 21, 2015 at 11:26 PM with the headline "Chris Johnson: When the disposal went out, she saw the light ."