It’s a sobering realization and a hard thing to admit, but I’m right on the verge of being a devout pessimist.  And it doesn’t take much of a shove to put me over the edge.  If your experiences with things mechanical, electrical or of a culinary nature come anywhere close to mine you’ll understand why I tend to moan and groan in the space allotted to me in this column.  Allow me to tell you of the latest outrage visited upon me by capricious fate.

Once the ten o’clock news is old news, it is the habit of Butterfly Poodle and me to hit the hay for our six hour stint in the arms of Morpheus.  I grab my book and stack pillows for my nightly dose of mind expanding literature as Butterfly sounds taps on a miniature moose that is equipped with an internal bulb she can grasp with her teeth and provide a symphony.  She only knows one tune and when she’s finished the lullaby she retreats to the foot of the bed and sacks out.

Welsir, last Monday night the news ground its way to the ten-thirty dot and we arose from our recliner, turned out the lights and went down the hall to our sleeping accommodations.

Butterfly performed her little dance to celebrate the completion of our rigorous agenda of the day.  I twisted the porcelain knob and it turned freely—actually, a tad too freely.  It rotated with the ease of the “necking knob” on my 1939 Ford of yesteryear, but it did not have a grip on the spindle that pulls the bolt from its recess in the keeper plate.  So, the door would not open, much to the chagrin of the poodle and me.  She eyed me with disappointment as I made that knob whirl like a Dervish, but the door defiantly held its position.

Sorely vexed I returned to the kitchen and downed a steaming draught of Maxwell House coffee and considered my next move.  Butterfly barked and danced impatiently.  I was not in the best of spirits either but I decided to go out on the front porch and gain access to the back side of that room, but alas and alack the screen was hooked.  I had a key to the wooden door of course, and I seriously considered cutting a hole in the screen, but I resisted and went back into the house.

Butterfly danced her disappointment as I studied that stubborn knob, and suddenly I noticed a small round hole in the brass apron that circles the metal shaft.  I recognized it as an emergency relief port for just such dilemmas.  I finally located a two inch brad that would go into that hole and I punched around in search of that magic pressure point.  Of course I could not locate it and the nail fell inside the void, and vanished forevermore.  A glance at the clock told me that I’d been on the job for almost two hours.  Butterfly had deserted me and was asleep in the recliner.  I walked by and she looked me over with disgust.

“I’m doing my best!” I stated, but she closed her eyes and snuggled down for the night.

Luckily I recalled the little recessed set screw that was seated in an aperture that will admit a screwdriver with a tiny end and allow the reseating of that screw.  A screwdriver of that caliber was located just prior to midnight and my luck held long enough to cinch that set screw down a couple of turns.

Victorious, I turned the knob and gained entry.  Butterfly beat me into the bed, but she was in no mood to find her toy and play taps.  She, howsomever, rousted at four AM and did her rendition of reveille.

I considered it, but I did not wring her neck.

Let me hear from you.

My phone number is 254-893-5063, my official postal address is: 333 W AYERS AVE – DE LEON TX 76444-2113, and you can e-mail chupp@charleschupp.com.