Wanted: Mr. FixIt, published in Aug 2007 az3sixty magazine

I love going to look at model homes. I am captivated by their fantasy life-- If I lived there, I would have a spacious master closet containing only a green plant and a hat box. The kitchen table would always be set with trendy dishes and junk mail wouldn‘t be reproducing in piles. The beds would always be made with dozens of cute throw pillows, no initials would be carved into the dining room table, and--most importantly-- everything would work! No doors sticking, no faucets dripping, no spots on the carpet covered by throw rugs. Sigh… wouldn’t it be wonderful?

I want to abandon my old broken down house and embrace a new easy life in a model home. The reason we don’t is because there are too many things to fix in our old house! Sometimes I try to make a repair list (because making a list is much easier than actually doing any real work) but it becomes too overwhelming after the first 16 pages. I dream of a home that needs no repair.

But back in reality, I think I need to hire some one to be my own personal home maintenance engineer. The job description is simple--deal with all the annoying broken house stuff so I don’t have to. I just want everything to work all the time with no effort on my part. Some one else can figure out why the pool is green, get the Christmas lights to work, change all those pesky filters, and unclog the drains. Surely such a job exists, c’mon, you think movie stars change their own light bulbs? I’m sure the rich and famous have never had to tell a house guest, “ Just jiggle the handle after you flush.”

Some people have spouses who fix things, but shortly after our honeymoon my husband brought home a handyman flier he picked up at the car wash. I knew then he was not going to be my home rescue guy. Personally, I may have a Master’s degree but when it comes to being handy and figuring out how to fix things, I have a severe learning disability. Going to a home store makes me break out in hives. People in orange aprons frighten me.

So we agreed that in our home, since we don’t excel at fixing things, we have to make enough money to pay some one else to do it. I think I need a second job. I wish we could find some one whose sole joy and purpose in life is to make sure we are never frustrated by all those little home emergencies and other natural disasters.

For instance, my desert dwelling house apparently can’t handle more than a inch of rain. Every monsoon we discover a new place where the roof leaks or basement floods. One freeze last winter caused at least a half dozen burst pipes. Ever tried calling a plumber or a roofer the day after a big storm? That’s why I need my own full time person who will respond quickly to my cries of, “Help! There‘s water everywhere and I don‘t know what to do!”

Here’s a fun house problem to solve. We have Bermuda grass growing up through the carpet by a bedroom window. I swear, it’s true! I’ve never seen anything like it. I hope my fantasy employee will figure out how to deal with it.

In the past year, there has been lots of mourning and grieving among our household mechanical family--may all the following rest in peace: the freezer, the pool pump, the car transmission, the lawnmower, the computer, and the dishwasher.

I even admit to causing some of our home disasters. My brain must have been in shock after paying for funeral expenses for all our dearly departed appliances, because I had an unfortunate incident with the weed whacker and the hi-speed internet line, and after that I rolled a 10 lb exercise ball down the stairs right into the drywall.

Speaking of the wall at the bottom of the stairs, that is a primary kid damage zone. It really ought to have a mattress mounted on it vertically. A cousin’s head holds the record for the most damage to the wall, (miraculously the cousin was OK), but frequently the holes are caused by the kids creating their own amusement park ride. They fill a cardboard box with pillows, then take turns pushing each other down the stairs while sitting in the box.

In fact, a large majority of our home repair grievances are child-caused. Once, after numerous plungers, snakes and bottles of drano had been unable to unclog our toilet , a smart but expensive plumber finally found the cause--a plastic dinosaur permanently lodged in the swirly part, and it would not budge. We finally had to buy a new toilet.

One Christmas morning a new light saber caused the demise of the hanging light in our entryway. Our weight machine has become useless after all the pulleys and cables were dismantled and made into places to hang blankets for an indoor fort. But my all time least favorite kid-caused event is picking aquarium fish gravel, one piece at a time, out of the disposal. Dream handyman, will you come save me?

Teenagers are also dangerous. My two testosterone-filled 14 year old boys got into a so-you-think-you’re-tougher-than-me shoving match and my now shattered stair banister was the loser. The window screens in the teenagers rooms also keep mysteriously coming off. Memo to teens: mom and dad weren’t born yesterday, we know all about the sneaking out.

Got pets? At our house, you can tell by looking at the doggy tooth marks on the back door, the outdoor a/c unit, the satellite TV cable and several sprinkler heads. By the way, did you know there is actually a store called Sprinkler World? Yes, I was forced to discover this against my will. Nice, but I really want some one else to run my Sprinkler World errands in the future.

I want to move to a home that is self-repairing, and self-cleaning too, hey, might as well dream big. But I suppose even model homes eventually have something break. So if you have ever wondered what women really fantasize about, I’ll tell you, it is having everything in the house work all the time; either that, or a full time fix-it guy who looks like Brad Pitt.