Sometimes, we experience moments of wonder that modern science cannot explain. Yeah, yeah, we now live in an age of magic because modern science has been defunded. But these moments are no less special for not being peer-reviewed. Truly spiritual glimpses beyond the veil of reason have no equal in this life, except maybe ice cream.
I experienced the inexplicable just this Sunday.
So there’s this door that just keeps coming loose. I’m not a big-time door person, by any means, so I don’t know how to explain it more technically than that. The door comes loose, and it always has, ever since the beginning of time or ever since the previous resident, whichever came later.
Every now and again the door gets looser, and my beloved asks me to tighten it—not because I am a man and thus more competent, but because I am taller and thus more competent.
I find a screwdriver—seldom the same screwdriver, and seldom in the same drawer—and I righty-tighty whatever screws still remain. The door closes a little more easily, for a time. A little less like there’s a foot or some small child in the way.
A week later, or a day, the door loosens right back up. It’s like the old cross-stitch saying: When God closes a door, He has to lift up on the handle and really put His shoulder into it. It’s the only way He can be sure to keep the cats out of the garage.
As I said, the door has been this way forever. Which makes what happened next all the more inexplicable.
The door came loose. Really loose this time. Loose enough to frustrate whatever Almighty is out there. I was not surprised, seeing as all the screws in all the hinges only I can reach still went righty but had ceased going tighty. My beloved asked me to fix it again.
Only this time, unlike all the times before … I KNEW HOW TO FIX IT BUT FOR REAL.
“Do we have toothpicks?” I asked.
We did.
“Do we have wood glue?” I asked.
We did.
“Is it hanging out with one of the screwdrivers?” I asked.
It was.
“Do we have any idea where I learned this?” I asked.
We did not.
You cannot science me into understanding how, exactly, I knew the tried-and-plausibly-true method for fixing stripped screw holes with quite literally the smallest pieces of lumber available on the market today.
I—and I cannot stress this enough—am not handy.
I tend to fix things by ignoring them until they go away. I have removed doors and lived without them rather than repair them. This toothpick trick is not something I could possibly know.
If trauma can be inherited through DNA, can handiness be passed on, too? This toothpick-fix feels like something Papaw would have known. It’s entirely possible my parents knew this fix too—it would explain the box of toothpicks from my childhood that’s still around here somewhere—but I was too busy re-reading Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books to pay attention to the home repair tips that, until Sunday, were not relevant to me.
Yet wherever I absorbed this knowledge, I mustered the undeserved confidence that only every man on the planet can muster. I coated those toothpicks in wood glue. I stuffed them into the screw holes. My beloved fed me salami and licorice and told me I was sexy. I got door hinge grease on one of my fingers. We took a nap that I got to count as “curing time.”
Then came the moment of truth: Screwable, or screwed up?
I am thrilled to report, with no spin whatsoever, that my unearned knowledge worked on all but one remaining screw. Which I am obligated to point out is on the bottommost hinge, where my beloved can reach it. Her problem now.
The door closes with silky ease. If it ever comes loose again, it might be time to sell the house and move to Europe. Or to try it again with multicolored toothpicks.
Either way, neither God nor science can describe that high of repairing a door with no knowledge or ability whatsoever. It was the fourth-best feeling of my day.
The third-best was that nap.
The second-best was the chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream my beloved bought me as thanks.
The first-best was sharing it with her.
There’s no magical moment quite like an impromptu date. Just to be sure we didn’t ruin the moment, we left the house out the other door.
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Bravo. And without resorting to duct tape.