Things I Don't Know

I might have titled this blog ‘ignorance,’ but that seemed a bit harsh. I don’t consider myself ignorant since I have a head full of useless information, as well as some knowledge that may come in handy from time to time. No, what I lack are some very basic facts about how things that make my life easier operate.

Last week my computer crashed. I got it fixed. The company that did the work is owned by friends. I don’t know—nor did I ask about—what they did to make things better. I dropped the thing off and picked it up two days later and voila, it worked again.

That same week my 1979 Jeep drank a tank-full of gas in 40 miles. The problem: a five-cent washer that swelled when heated and kepot the automatric choke inj  the on position.

Yesterday, when a record-high heat front came through, the air conditioning system in my house stopped working. This is cause for panic, not because of the heat but because of the expense. A new system would have cost far more than I have available. So I called a heating and cooling company and an hour or so later perfectly nice technician came over. In minutes, he had diagnosed the problem.  My system was frozen. Frozen? How the f*** can that happen? He tried to explain. I nodded my head uncomprehendingly trying not to appear too much of a dolt. Basically, he said, a block of ice formed in the system preventing air from circulating. Think of it, he joked, as a giant martini shaker. He whistled while he worked. Really.  He took something old and broken out, smiled, replaced it with something new, turned on the heat--the heat, mind you…

In minutes a puddle of water appeared. The inch-thick block of ice crippling my system was melting. Within an hour, the temperature in the house went from an overly balmy 80 degrees to 72 and I was $410 poorer. My technician also tolled the tocsin of doom. My AC/furnace are old, he said, tired and slowly dying…

All this started me wondering.  When I bought my first motorcycle, I could tear it apart and rebuild it within hours.  My last bike was so complex that a computer had to be hooked up to diagnose a carburetor hick-up. The shop the mechanic, a young Harley guy with intimate knowledge of internals combustion, shook his head and told me that in order to work on the new imported (read Japanese) motorcycles, a shop has to invest anywhere from $200,000 to $500,000 just for tools, and attend up to 200 hours of special training.

Me, I’m not even sure how a retractable ball-point pen works. I have a nodding acquaintance with the power of gravity and find the technology behind paperclips, Post-It notes, pencil-tip erasers and Wite-Out both baffling and revolutionary.  I can do basic stuff—I rewired all the phones in my house, put in a dropped-ceiling, installed my dishwasher. I’m hell on bookshelves, can adequately wire a stereo and know how to unjam the garbage disposal with a cut-off broomstick. The rest of it is beyond me, which does not augur well for the future. All of which, I suddenly realize, explains the existence of condos…