A non-mechanical man is doing the best he can, but the Force is not with him

“Does anything work at all in this country anymore?” asks Jack P. Gabriel of Carson.

Gabriel has been through one of those periods in which nothing electronic or mechanical seems to work. His new vacuum cleaner defies him; he doesn’t understand his new TV set; he loses his coins to coin-operated machines half the time; and car repair is so expensive and so bad that he’s afraid to take his car in.

“This morning I went to the market to get a gallon of water, as the tap water in Carson tastes peculiar. I deposited my 35 cents, but only got a large splash. I foolishly put in another 35 cents, which brought forth a dribble. . . .”

Gabriel says the only thing that’s better than it used to be is men’s socks.

I’ve been having my own problems.

For the third time my car overheated the other day. Evidently the mechanics can’t figure out what it is.

My videocassette recorder refuses to record. I have already admitted that it is more sophisticated than I am, but I thought we had worked it out.

Light bulbs are burning out so fast in our house that I’m tempted to believe there’s some paranormal force at work. Perhaps some poltergeist is punishing me for boasting that the one thing I know how to do around the house is change light bulbs.

The other day my computer modem refused to obey my command to send my column to The Times by telephone. I was back in the Dark Ages.

Whenever we leave some reliable old machine and move up to a new level of technology, we take the risk of encountering some new and incomprehensible frustration.

We who have switched from typewriters to computers have much in common with the hardy pioneers who switched from the horse and buggy to the automobile.

And sometimes, when my computer fails me, my old friends taunt, “Get a horse!”

My worst complaint at the moment is not related to technology. It’s one that has troubled man since he first began building shelters.

Our roof leaks.

Our roof leaked two years ago and we paid $1,700 to have it fixed. It leaked again last year, and we had to get out pans to catch the dripping water. Then, in that first big rainstorm of September, it leaked again, with a vengeance.

It is our bedroom wing that leaks. The problem was created a few years ago when we had the wing widened by six feet. It required a fake roof line, and the roofers didn’t get the job done right. The leak has got worse every year.

Last summer we had our playhouse restored by a man named Dennis, who can do any kind of work around a house, and I had him go up on the roof to see if he could find out why it was leaking.

He said his brother-in-law was a roofer and he’d have him take a look. The brother-in-law came and looked and said we needed some metal flashing around our cupola. Nothing to it.

I asked Dennis if he could do it. He said sure thing. Get at it in a day or two.

The summer passed. Dennis never came back. Now and then I’d think about him. Every day I saw the water-darkened bedroom ceilings as a reminder. Then came September, with that first chill in the air.

You may remember that the big storm came up suddenly, without much warning from those cheerful TV forecasters. In the front bedroom the ceiling leaked so rapidly and in so many places that we couldn’t set out enough pots and pans to contain the drippage. Bedspread, blankets, sheets and the carpet were soon soaked.

The biggest drip was coming from the ceiling light globe. The water seemed to flow down the sides of the globe and form an enormous drop on the bottom, which then splashed loudly into the largest pan my wife had.

It was soon full. The rain continued.

I kept emptying the pan and putting it back, in the interim substituting another pan.

When bedtime came I realized that if the rain continued through the night, which it showed every sign of doing, even the largest pan would soon be full, and I would have to get up every half-hour or so to empty it.

I remembered a large galvanized iron bath tub I had bought years before to wash my Airedale in. If you have any idea how hard it is to wash a grown Airedale, you will know how big that tub is.

We got it up from the garage and put it on the bed under the light. When the first drop hit the bottom of the tub it sounded like a kettledrum.

Thump . . . Thump . . . Thump.

I knew I’d never get to sleep with those big drops hitting the bottom of the tub every few seconds. But soon there was enough water in the tub that the drops didn’t resound. They splashed.

Splash . . . Splash . . . Splash.

We got to sleep, and in the morning the tub was full almost to overflowing.

It was still raining.

After the storm Dennis came by. He was full of apologies. One thing had just led to another, and time had flown.

Dennis and his brother-in-law have now fixed the roof.

“It won’t leak anymore,” he told me. “I guarantee it.”

I don’t think he really means he guarantees it. It was just a manner of speaking.

Meanwhile, thank God for my socks.