01-27-2021 a Wednesday with 3 inches of snow.
A few weeks ago, my daughter asked me what kind of songs I sang when I was little. I quickly recalled “A Screw on the Side of the Road”. I was surprised to hear I could sing the entire song without missing a beat.
When adults sing childhood songs, it is like turning back time and enjoying the pure innocence of childhood after a very long journey. This was what I felt when I sang “A Screw on the Side of the Road” to my daughter. I guess such feeling belong to the generation who were born in 1960′s.
A screw on the sideway is lovely is a childish expression. A screw in the oven is wretched, this is a reality of life, because the screw in the oven tortured my daughter and I for two days.
On Sunday, I was planning to roast lamb and found out our oven didn’t work. As I don’t use the oven often, I didn’t think the oven not working was a big problem. However, my daughter used the oven a lots. She said: “We must fix the oven on Monday!”
So on Monday morning, my daughter told me: “I searched online and found that when oven doesn’t work, 60% the problem is caused by malfunction igniter. Replacing the igniter will likely fix the problem. I already ordered the igniter, which will arrive tomorrow. So today we should do all the preparation.”
I wondered: “Do you know how to replace the igniter?”
“There are online videos which give step-by-step details on how to replace the igniter.”
After she took off the oven door, she told me: “Unscrew the screws on bottom cover and remove the bottom cover, then we can replace the igniter.”
We thought unscrewing the screws would be easy! but …
There are two screws on the bottom cover, one screw was easily removed, but another screw was too tight to be unscrewed. We thought the screw was tightened by oil, so my daughter used hair blower to blow on the screw for a long time, but we still could not unscrew it.
After doing more searching on the computer, my daughter said: “Our arms are too weak, let’s buy an electric screwdriver.”
We bought back an electric screwdriver, but instead of unscrewing the stuck screw, it stripped out the cross on the cap of the screw. Now no screwdriver can hold the screw to make a turn, which was very frustrating.
My daughter did more research on the computer and got a sound suggestion: buying a wrench, steel glue, and a hex nut. Glue the hex nut to the screw cap, wait for 6 hours, then use the wrench to turn the hex nut to unscrew the stuck screw.
But after the first 6 hours, the hex nut was not glued to the cap, so the wrench took the hex nut away from the cap. On the second try, we waited overnight until Tuesday morning.
Monday is the last day of Groudon and Kyogre hatching in Gyms for Pokémon Go, so during our scheduled oven maintenance, we dashed out to catch Groudon and Kyogre. Well balanced working stress and playing joy made our Monday fun.
But on Tuesday morning, the wrench still could not turn the stuck screw, and the igniter arrived.
Tuesday’s reality created much tension for us. Both my daughter and I made many phone calls seeking help…
Luckily, Entei, a different legendary Pokemon, started to hatch in Gyms on Tuesday. My daughter said: “Shiny Entei is very similar to our princess Kara. I want to catch a shiny Entei.” Her enthusiasm for shiny Entei diluted the tension created by the stuck screw.
On Wednesday, handyman Lin came over, unscrewing the screw and replacing the igniter with ease.
Little Episodes
My daughter thought the shiny Entei resembles our princess Kara. On Tuesday, I caught a shiny Entei and renamed it Kara. Our princess Kara sits on one of my biggest projects.
The stuck screw in the oven, the hateful screw
Torture on Monday
Torture on Tuesday
Lyric of “A screw on the side of the road” (a very popular Chinese children’s song in 1970′s)
A screw on the side of the road
A boy saw it on the way to school
Though the screw is very small
It is needed to build up our country
Pick up it and look at it
Wipe the dust off it,
So good is it
Give it to the worker
Who puts it on a machine
Hay! The machine sings and we clap and smile