The quick fix: a tale of woe

Yesterday morning I decided that I was tired of the face plate dangling from the telephone jack on my bedroom wall. It was not screwed on and just looked ugly.

Two screws and job done, right?

I went to the garage where I had a blank plate to get the screws from it, grabbing a screwdriver from the toolbox.

I went back in the house, up the stairs and put the screws in place and started to tighten them.

The ancient faceplate broke.

I decided I would never need an analog phone in my bedroom so I went back down the stairs, to the garage, retrived the blank faceplate from the garbage, and went back up the stairs.

I found that the telephone jack stuck out too far to attach the blank face plate so I removed the jack by cutting the wires that ran to it, shoved the unholy mass of wires back into the wall and screwed on the faceplate.

I went downstairs, got on my computer, and found my wireless router that was connected to another telephone jack in the house no longer worked.

I moved the router to another jack. No luck.

I figured that cutting the wires cut the telephone circuits throughout the house. Went back upstairs, removed the plate, and tried to find the critical wires need to complete the cicuit. Nothing matched.

I went downstairs and got on the iPad with celluar data and Googled "installing a telephone jack." From the picture and in the how-to's discovered I needed only two wires connected. Looked at the colors in the photos.

Went back upstairs, and stripped the insulation on the most likely looking wires (cutting the pad on my thumb in the process - which still hurts) and hooked some up.

Went downstairs, looked at the modem. Red light. not good.

Went back upstairs and hooked up two other pairs.

Went downstairs and had coffee.

Looked at the router and saw a green light. Moved it back to its original position upstairs. Waited. Green light.

Went back downstairs, checked the Internet and it worked.

Went back upstairs, taped the connections together, pushed the wires back in the wall, installed the blank faceplate.

A one minute job accomplished in only an hour.

And the moral of the story?

Next weekend I tackle a dripping facucet in the bathtub. Pray for me.

Comments

[Debra Gottsleben]

This was hysterical. That is why so many of these kinds of jobs don't get done around our house!

[T.Koontz]

May I suggest that you save a bit of time and look up on YouTube "How to fix leaky bathtub faucet"? Good Luck . LOL

[Doug Johnson]

Thanks. I usually fix things now with a wrench in one hand and the iPad in the other!

Doug​