Miss Fix-It

This morning I woke up (on time, which is quite an accomplishment) and got in the shower. To turn on the water, I have to pull out a knob and then turn it to the left or the right to adjust the temperature. Today, I pulled the stupid thing right off and almost lost the little screw that's supposed to hold it in place. I'm very proud of myself, though. Rather than panicking and wondering how I was supposed to shower if I couldn't adjust the temperature of the water (I do NOT take cold showers, ever), I stayed calm and found my screw-driver and fixed the problem.
Granted, this was a very easy problem to fix. Over the weekend, I faced a much larger problem. Sunday evening I noticed that the carpet in my dining area was soaking wet. And I could not find where the water was coming from!!! I laid towels over the carpet, but it was so wet that the towels were soaking in a very short amount of time. I hate calling maintenance out to fix things. I don't like having big men I don't know tramping through my nice little apartment. And I don't like admitting that I can't fix something myself (that whole independence thing, you know). This time there was nothing I could do about it and I had to call. It turns out my neighbor's refridgerator was leaking.
I suppose I come by this whole wanting to fix things myself naturally. In this way I am definitely my father's daughter. The only difference being that my father actually knows what he's doing...most of the time. There was a time back when I was in high school that he decided he was going to fix my piano. A couple of the keys were sticking and a couple others had wandering hammers that hit the strings of the key next to it, producing a very nasty sound. My father's job is to keep giant, complex machines running, and he thought that if he could do that, he could easily fix something as simple as a piano.
I remember being in my room doing homework when Mom came in and said, "Sherrah, you need to come see this." I walked into the living room, and the first thing I noticed was that my piano was naked. Dad had taken off the front panels and the lid so he could see inside it, and then he had taken off each individual key. The next think I noticed was the pile of piano keys in the corner. The only sound I could make was a very faint "eek!" followed by a "you better be able to fix this!"
Dad did manage to put everything back together, and the piano still worked, for the most part. But we did have to call a piano tuner to come fix the original problems, and the new ones that Dad had created. He hasn't attempted to fix the piano since. And I remain grateful for that.