When looking at an item on the fix it list, do you ever say, “This piece of shit (item), I’m going to throw it out”? How do we judge the difference between determination to finish a project and a waste of time?
These questions are something I consider more and more these days. Especially when I am fixing things that really have very little monetary value. Today I got lost in fixing a little Maglight that I had recovered from waste. There was a AAA battery stuck inside the aluminum sleeve of the flashlight. There is not much room in there for heat expansion and/or corrosion. The battery was welded in there with corroded battery crap. I see why someone would chuck it after finding it in the overflowing junk drawer during the latest power outage. Some stuff sits, brand new, sometimes in packaging, sometimes with price tags, waiting for an emergency. It doesn’t work when that emergency happens? Throw it out.
Is fixing this a useful endeavour? I like to think so. For the jammed battery, it took me a few tries to find the solution. Banging it on a flat surface hoping to jar it out was obviously the first thing to do. Nope, welded in there. Picking at it with something pointy or knifey? Nope, won’t spin. Push it out from the lamp side? It doesn’t look like a person can reach the battery. The battery is dead and not lithium…would some sort of drilling work?…perhaps a screw to get some grip and pliers for leverage? Yes, That’s it. More leverage is needed and a vise completes the task. Rotten battery removed.
This took a lot longer to figure out than the linear text above suggests. Was it a waste of time? From one perspective I could have used that time to produce labour at an hourly rate. Why would you sink all that time into fixing junk when you could be getting PAID to fix junk for someone else? Perhaps the answer I can give to myself and the answer that helps me to persevere over the “shit that gets in the way of things getting fixed” is, it is an education. I am learning to fix shit as I fix the actual shit. The value of learning and the value of a product repaired is greater than doing labour for some asshole billionaire creating trinkets that fuck up human habitat.
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