“Amelie, your daddy’s Cuban side is coming out,” my wife said. I don’t know if it was a statement of fact or more a warning — “Watch out, sweetie, I think he’s going to salsa!”
She was actually referring to my attempt to fix the lid on the bathroom stool, which has a tendency if you’re not careful to slam shut when you’re done taking something out. It sounds like a giant slab of granite being blown off a mountainside, and I jump whenever I hear it. When it happened twice this night, I marched off to the kitchen, pulled something out of a drawer and told the family, “I’ll fix that once and for all.”
I would Thompson-nize it.
Whenever I “fix” things, my wife thinks it’s my Cuban genes coming out. Cubans are incredibly resourceful, especially after years of coping with a defunct economy and a shortage of almost everything. They can’t just go out and buy something when it breaks, so they fix it. Or make something to replace it. It’s almost an artform how they’ve learned to make do with bits and pieces of nothing, turning them into useful items that make life easier. They may not always be pretty, but they work.
I think it’s been like that for generations on the island, and maybe some of it has been passed down to my brother and me.
We’ve always been that way — chronic tinkerers and unable to hire someone to fix what we figure we can somewhat repair for free. It’s not so much cheap as it is the challenge. To be fair, a lot of that we get from my dad who isn’t from Cuba, but Kentucky.
I think of it as being handy. Being resourceful. Recycling. Why just throw something away when there might be life in it yet? Why not improve it if you can? Bring it new life? Something comes unattached? Duct tape it back together. Or better yet, put 52 screws in it, wrap it with twine and paint it. Voila! It’s fixed. It may look a little funny, but it’s fixed.
One of the greatest things I’ve ever heard my daughter tell me is, “You’re good at fixing things, dad.” It’s amazing, and it usually comes after I’ve pinned something of hers together or jammed something back in place. She has no idea that I’m wingin’ it and it’s all smoke and mirrors — that I’ve only jury-rigged it. The beauty in my repairs is how they defy multiple laws of physics, and often gravity. But in the eyes of a three-year-old, I’m a hero. I’m “The Fixer.”
Sure, it’s going to break again within the hour, but what a magical hour it will be.
My contractor Chad, who is building an addition on my house and has known about these quirks of mine for several years, continuously marvels at my “handiwork” as he moves about my house, undoing things I’ve done as quickly as he can.
Sometimes he looks at me just the way my daughter does — like I’m a magician.
He’ll stare up at this or that for minutes on end, shake his head, and then ask, “So, I’m dying to know, how did you do that, and more importantly, WHY did you do that?”
There’s always a logical explanation — or my kind of logic. Chad will smile, nod his head, and say, “Well, I guess that makes sense,” even if it doesn’t.
I think he recognizes that my way may not exactly be the right way, or the best way, or the most logical way, or even the easiest way. But it is one way — my way — and nobody died in the process.
Sure, it might look like hell and it might even be dangerous. But it’s my special brand of handiwork — all Thompson-ized — and it’s been passed down for generations from ancestors in Cuba and Kentucky who always believed that if there was a will, there was also a cheap and innovative way.