March 7: The Dryer Vent

Before my Dad passed away a few years ago, every time I had a repair, installation or home improvement task to complete my first step was to get him on the phone. He would either talk me through it or just come on over to the house to assist. Although, truth be told, it was more like me assisting him most of the time. But, it was a learning experience for me. The next time, I was able to do it independently, unless it was something extremely complicated or required more than one set of hands. But now, now I feel like on my own in that regard. And, thus far, I've done pretty well for myself. But, the other day, our cat either fell or elected by her own freewill to leap from the top of our dryer down behind it, thus disabling the dryer vent schematic between the dryer and the wall. Nothing major, but it still required some minor repair. Unfortunately, I've never tackled dryers before; neither with or without support. So, I was treading on new ground here, and I was not liking the situation (and I sure as hell let the cat know, too!). You know that feeling you get when something, on the surface, appears quite simple, yet your mind begins to wander into all of the horrible possibilities that could potentially happen as a result of your tinkering with it? Well, I had about 3 of those feelings running through my brain. What if I can't get it back together? What if I get it together but it's not right and we have a fire? Why do I have to spend 15 minutes of my time doing this because of the stupid cat's inability to tightrope the back of the dryer? Okay, so that last one isn't really about reservations, but it is mostly what I was thinking. Anyway, this morning I tackled the job. It was basically just a little aligning of the vent in the wall to the one on the dryer and some duct tape to secure. It worked out fine. So far at least. We haven't run the dryer yet, so I could be way off here. But, I'm thinking it's going to be fine and I'm felling pretty good about it. Even did the entire thing without getting angry, frustrated or cussing once, which, if you know me, is quite an accomplishment. So, I can check dryer vents off my list of home repair. I'm feeling a little disappointed though, as now I'm thinking I could have put in the new water heater that we had installed last Monday on my own and saved a few bucks. I mean, it's just like repairing a dryer vent, isn't it?