My dad used to talk about the what he called the “take-and-getcha-boys.” You needed a take-and-getcha-boy, when your carburetor vapor-locked, in a Memorial Day parade.
“You take and getcha a grapefruit,” a take-and-getcha-boy would say. “And you cut it in half. Now, you eat one half right there on the spot. The other half, you mash down on top of that carburetor, see, and wait a few minutes and until it cools ‘er down. And you just leave that grapefruit right on there, until you get home.”
Was reminded of that during a 45-minute lecture from a garage-door repairman last week. Deep and heavy talk about torsion springs: their thickness, their length, their durability and above all, their essential role in making a garage door go up and down easily.
There were a few case studies.
One guy broke springs every other goddamn year because his seven teenage kids used the garage door as a front door. Well, that guy got a pair of high-use springs, which upped the number of times he could raise and lower his door before busting a spring from 10,000 to about 50,000. “How do you like that?”
And then there was this one lady.
“Now I don’t wanna say this lady’s door was heavy. It was more like what I would call, she had a ‘door-heavy situation.’ …”
First thing he did was, he took and got him a ladder …
Excellent.