Anything you can do, I can do better…

There has been a death at the apartment. Not just any sort of thing died, mind you. It was something that was very near and dear to my heart…my oscillating fan. Before you laugh and say something along the lines of, “You poor, typical, man…” let me tell you my story (then you’re free to say whatever you want!).

I bought this fan right after I started working at the Grambling (the first time I’ve mentioned where I used to work!). It was a really cool looking fan…like something out of a classic film noir. It was silver in color and ran like a demon was after it. Personally, I thought it was pretty cool and had an air of “antiquity” surrounding it…even though I got it at Wal-Mart for less than $8.

Well, 3 years have passed since I purchased this fan, and it followed me on many wild adventures (we went spelunking in Florida, white water rafting in Idaho and even snow skiing in Hawaii). All things were good in Fan-land, as it were, until Sunday when it decided that it was tired and just stopped.

Please imagine with me, if you will, the concern that I felt as I looked over at my long-term friend and realized that it had flat-lined for the last time (and I hadn’t even turned it off!). Quickly, I tried everything that I could think of to revive it. I unplugged it and plugged it back in. I turned it off and back on, but the fan just wouldn’t turn on.

I cried.

Ok, so I didn’t cry, I wasn’t even upset…but it was puzzling.

Tonight, I decided (yeah, I waited 3 days) to see if I might be able, in all of my technical wizardry, to revive this fan of mine. I got out all the tools that I would need (2 screwdrivers, a pocket knife and a pair of tweezers) and set it on the coffee table. Groovy looked at me with concern in her eyes and asked, “Do you think you can save it?” “Damn it, Groovy! I’m a computer geek, not a fan repair man!” (ok, so she didn’t say anything to that effect and I didn’t swear at her)

I deftly wielded my trusty Phillips screwdriver and began removing screws left and right. Metal flew. My hands were a blur across the various mechanisms that made the fan a fan. I was making quite a bit of progress…I really was. Then, as it so often happens, I ran into a snag. The motor wouldn’t come out of the housing. “Hmm,” I said to myself, “someone put it together, so I can take it apart. Anything they can do, I can do better.”

That became my mantra as I considered the various ways that the motor could have been placed inside the housing. “Maybe they used a transporter,” my over-geeked brain came up with. “No no no…that’s not possible. You can’t transport anything that small to someplace so specific,” I replied. Finally, I decided that the 4 screws that had been mocking me from around the housing were the issue, so I removed them as well. Little did I know that they were held in place by nuts on the back side…virtually impossible to replace once taken out.

JOY! The housing came completely off the motor! I looked inside my now disemboweled motor and noticed a decided lack of dust or grease. “Hmm,” I said to myself. “Surely this isn’t broken because of a lack of…grease.” Yes, Scott…that was the problem. Well, as there was absolutely no way I was EVER going to put that thing back together, I gathered up all the parts and a plastic bag, said a few short words in its memory, and I placed the parts in the bag for burial tomorrow.

I guess if there is one thing that I can tell all you other aspiring home repair people it’s this…before you go through the trouble of tearing something apart (when, of course, you have NO clue how it works), take the time to see if it needs grease. Apparently, grease makes things like fans work better…who knew. One other thing to remember, if you do decide to tear into a project like mine, is to have a mantra handy. Feel free to use mine until you come up with your own…anything you can do, I can do better.

Oh, and you can laugh at me now.