Trash Talking

Your first house is for practice. My first wife and I bought a secondhand twin home in 1986, a modest two story structure in Blackwood, New Jersey that was joined at the hip to another populated home. While I managed to put a roof over my head, I lacked a firm understanding of tools and what to do with them on this dwelling. So I rudely practiced carpentry on a thin-walled house that held a thick thirty year mortgage note on it. It is where I learned to paint, wallpaper, saw, spackle, and swing a hammer.

Because we did not own even a chair leg of dining room furniture, my wife and I transformed the family room into a more spacious living area, a great room in a wee home. We moved the brand new console television to a blank wall that had no existing electric outlet. So it became my job to power the signature piece called the television. The kitchen sink rested on the other side of the wall. Investigating my surroundings, I found an electric outlet underneath the cabinetry housing the sink. It invited room for a spare plug-in. Giddy-up!

So I used my drill and hand saw to make a hole through the dry wall and out the other side underneath the kitchen cabinetry. Over the course of about two hours, I managed to fish an extension cord through the wall then connect the television to the new electric hook-up. Giddy-up! I patched the hole then painted the wall with matching touch-up paint. I took a step back to admire my clean, efficient, problem solving handiwork.

Time to kick back and watch a baseball game with my feet propped up sipping from a frosty mug of beer. When I could not power the television on, I knew something had to be wrong. I checked the circuit breaker. My mug defrosted. I double checked my connections yet found them to be true. My beer warmed. What could be wrong? Mounting a frustrating sweat, I paced around the silenced boob tube. The baseball game had probably reached the third inning by now.

Just for shits and giggles, I flipped a light switch to the right of the sink above the kitchen countertop. The television immediately turned on but so did the ½ horsepower garbage disposal! I assessed my ingenuity amidst the noise pollution. The only time I could watch television was with the annoying drone of the garbage disposal operating. Like I said, your first house is for practice and your second house is for keeps.