Do It Yourself

更新：2023-11-22

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[00:01.47]Lesson 46
[00:03.46]Do it yourself
[00:11.19]Did the writer repair his lawn mower in the end? Why/Why not?
[00:18.82]So great is our passion for doing things for ourselves,
[00:22.33]that we are becoming increasingly less dependent on specialized labour.
[00:27.45]No one can plead ignorance of a subject any longer, for there are countless do-it-yourself publications.
[00:34.90]Armed with the right tools and materials,
[00:37.51]newlyweds gaily embark on the task of decorating their own homes.
[00:42.90]Men, particularly, spend hours of their leisure time installing their own fireplaces,
[00:49.52]laying out their own gardens; building garages and making furniture.
[00:56.29]Some really keen enthusiasts go so far as to build their own computers.
[01:01.89]Shops cater for the do-it-yourself craze not only by running special advisory services for novices,
[01:09.07]but by offering consumers bits and pieces which they can assemble at home.
[01:14.81]Such things provide an excellent outlet for pent up creative energy,
[01:20.07]but unfortunately not all of us are born handymen.
[01:25.44]Some wives tend to believe that their husbands are infinitely resourceful and can fix anything.
[01:33.01]Even men who can hardly drive a nail in straight are supposed to be born electricians, carpenters, plumbers and mechanics.
[01:43.36]When lights fuse, furniture gets rickety, pipes get clogged,
[01:49.01]or vacuum cleaners fail to operate,
[01:51.85]some women assume that their husbands will somehow put things right.
[01:57.22]The worst thing about the do-it-yourself game
[02:00.18]is that sometimes even men live under the delusion that they can do anything, even when they have repeatedly been proved wrong.
[02:10.18]It is a question of pride as much as anything else.
[02:15.00]Last spring my wife suggested that I call in a man to look at our lawn mower.
[02:21.68]It had broken down the previous summer, and though I promised to repair it, I had never got round to it.
[02:29.39]I would not hear of the suggestion and said that I would fix it myself.
[02:34.97]One Saturday afternoon, I hauled the machine into the garden and had a close look at it.
[02:41.38]As far as I could see, it needed only a minor adjustment:
[02:46.35]a turn of a screw here, a little tightening up there, a drop of oil and it would be as good as new.
[02:55.43]Inevitably the repair job was not quite so simple.
[03:00.22]The mower firmly refused to mow, so I decided to dismantle it.
[03:06.63]The garden was soon littered with chunks of metal which had once made up a lawn mower.
[03:12.99]But I was extremely pleased with myself. I had traced the cause of the trouble.
[03:19.46]One of the links in the chain that drives the wheels had snapped.
[03:24.25]After buying a new chain I was faced with the insurmountable task of putting the confusing jigsaw puzzle together again.
[03:33.03]I was not surprised to find that the machine still refused to work after I had reassembled it,
[03:39.33]for the simple reason that I was left with several curiously shaped bits of metal which did not seem to fit anywhere.
[03:47.50]I gave up in despair. The weeks passed and the grass grew.
[03:53.03]When my wife nagged me to do something about it,
[03:55.91]I told her that either I would have to buy a new mower or let the grass grow.
[04:01.74]Needless to say our house is now surrounded by a jungle.
[04:05.59]Buried somewhere in deep grass there is a rusting lawn mower which I have promised to repair one day.