Onions in the Stew by Betty Macdonald

Author:Betty Macdonald
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-09-27T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER X

MASTER OF NONE

IF YOU live on the salt water, I am informed by the old-timers, you can expect everything you own, even a great big stone fireplace, to break down eventually. This, they say, has something to do with the corrosive effect of salt air. My private opinion, solidified by experience, is that it has more to do with the corrosive effect of the eight million house-guests attracted by the salt air. Anyway, in addition to the icebox, beds, stove, etc., that were in the house when we bought it, we added, as fast as we could gather up the down payments, dishwashers, automatic washers, dryers, freezers, gas heaters, electric heaters on thermostats, chafing dishes, plant sprayers, septic tanks and more toilets with bowls eager for charm bracelets and little celluloid ducks, and with handles that must be juggled ad infinitum unless we want the toilets to run ditto. At inconvenient intervals each of these machines has stopped doing the thing it was hired to do and by means of smoke signals, grinding noises and pungent smells of burning rubber has indicated that it desired the evil eye of the local handyman.

The local handyman, always referred to as “Nipper” or “Gimpy” or “Mrs. Walters’ Harry,” will fix anything but, like a room that is tidy except for the underwear hanging out of the bureau drawers, the repair job is invariably left with tag ends. “The dishwasher’s okay, now, Betty,” Mrs. Walters’ Harry told me the time the dishwasher insisted on using only dirty cold water which it was apparently sucking up from the septic tank, instead of the nice clean hot water so handily piped into its abdomen. “But remember no soap and keep that big screwdriver of Don’s handy to pry the lid up.”

In my early island days I cuddled a cozy little notion that our country repairmen might not be as dextrous or have as big tool kits as their city brothers but they were a lot more willing and much cheaper. The willing part is true enough. Nipper, when you can find him (which he has not made easy by marrying an Estonian girl who speaks only one word of English, “hello,” which she screams into the telephone before immediately hanging up), will attempt anything. Need your rowboat calked, your Pittisporum tobira transplanted, your Stradivarius tuned? Nipper will gladly take on the assignment, but first, and I mean before one broken fingernail or big rusty tool touches the job, he must send to Seattle for the most recent rate schedule for boat calkers, landscape gardeners or Stradivarius repairment. Your alternative is portal to portal pay from Seattle and maybe the lights are off and they are grinding the ramp of the dock down by hand.

Island repairmen also expect immediate payment. “Be sure and send the check tomorrow morning, Betty—I’m real short of cash and Elva’s gittin’ her new china clippers,” New Motor Marvin told me after examining my steam iron the time it boiled and boiled

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