Entry for July 19, 2007

I was involved in a bit of an incident with the roller blinds tonight. It is not my fault that roller blinds are over-engineered and complex pieces of machinery. We had blackout blinds fitted in the bedrooms in the house, after the Small Bald Person was born. The effect was miraculous - the baby slept right through the night and I have been regularly late for work ever since.
However, the mysteries of closing the roller blind are apparently beyond my mechanical skills. As I was going to bed last night, I thought I would draw the blinds. I was a bit tired, and I was already in my underpants. So rather than adopt the traditional approach of using the oh-so-difficult to use chain, which those devils at the blinds company provided for the purpose of closing the blinds, I thought I would adopt the simpler approach of tugging the centre of the blind downward - after all that is a more direct method. The chain thing is an inconvenience, and frankly a little bit beyond my abilities. Also, it would have delayed my bed time by several precious seconds. So, I stood in my Y fronts and yanked the blind down.
Here is my advice. Use the blind-closing-chain-thing.
After my new downward blind tugging technique was employed, there was a nasty sound. It was not unlike the sound of fabric ripping, and the material seemed to rumple alarmingly in one corner. Knowing that my Significant Other was only a matter of moments away from discovering my ineptitude, I thought I would attempt to resolve matters by tugging the chain thing a bit. This did not help. The chain thing as now wound around the fiendish chain hub mechanism thing, and the whole thing was getting out of hand.
I poked at the chain for a bit with my index finger, and hopped about a bit in my pants. I waved at a couple of bemused neighbours before doing what I knew I had to. I called on my Significant Other. She knows I was not born to be a mechanic. In fact I am generally forbidden to touch anything more complicated that a dessert spoon.
She fixed it. She also called me a useless b*****d and told me not to touch the blinds again.