My hypochondria says I'll probably be dead before Ruby needs to call me from her apartment panicking that her stove won't light, or that she flushed her flipflop down the toilet. I might miss out on those little crises, and that scares me to death. But this post isn't about how badly I need to quit smoking in the very, very near future, but rather some of the things I want to teach Ruby by the time she's 18 so she's not fixing broken chairs with duct tape or driving around town on a bald spare tire.
1. Know the names of essential household tools and how to use each one. Screwdriver, pliers, wrench, hammer, level, drill, jigsaw, gorilla glue, clamps, etc.
2. Clear a drain clog. No child of mine will ever spend hard-earned money on highly caustic chemicals that often do little more than destroy the pipes and pollute the water. No, a clog needs a snake, period. Plumber's snakes are inexpensive, and snaking a drain is easy. Gross, but easy. Extracting the source of the clog is highly satisfying, as is not having to call a plumber or the landlord for something that is so simple anyone could do it.
3. Maintain the toilet. Toilets are simple, elegant machines. If there's a leak, it's easy to troubleshoot the cause. If you flush something you shouldn't, removing the toilet to get to the trap is really a piece of cake if you have the right tools (see #1) and have a little time to spare. Replacing the flapper, flush valve and flush mechanism is easy, and it's essential to know how to do it if you want to avoid having to jiggle the handle every time you flush or dig around in the tank every other day to put the chain back on the flapper. I don't know about you, but it's a lot of little things like that that add up to debilitating chaos in my brain.
4. Mow the lawn. This is a task best learned early, in my opinion. Probably because I learned it early. I'm a very good mower when I get around to doing it, and that's because when I turned 13 it was my job to do the yard work. Ah, the memories, blasting Rush on my Walkman, daydreaming about love, or escaping, or becoming a big star and saying "ha, ha" to the bullies... Teaching Ruby how to fill the tank, check the oil, mow straight, overlap the rows, switch direction every mowing and clean off the blades safely is something that will serve her well her whole life.
5. Do laundry. All the little laundry rules! Sorting the clothes, how much soap to use, remembering to clean out the dryer trap after every load, setting the most energy-efficient water levels and washing and drying cycles, etc...not to mention the best way to fold clothes to prevent wrinkling and save space. Included here would probably be basic sewing tasks like putting on a button or mending a seam tear.
6. Cook. For God's sake, if you can't feed yourself by the time you're a teenager, you're in for it. You'll end up eating fast food, microwave burritos and chicken pot pies, and that's not good for anyone. Oven and stove safety, flipping an egg, following directions, using measuring utensils, cleaning up after yourself.
7. Change a fuse or reset a breaker. Stuff is always tripping breakers.
8. Maintain the car. Check the oil, fill up the windshield washer fluid receptacle, put air in the tires, change a tire, use jumper cables. The basic things that keep your car running and help you avoid paying someone else to do what you're perfectly capable of doing yourself.
9. Address a letter, endorse a check, read a bill, understand a bank statement... all those lost arts that aren't nearly as necessary as they once were, but that will come in handy when the end of the world comes and there's no more internet.
10. How to read labels. Clothing labels, ingredients labels, warning labels, etc... I had to research all the symbols they put on clothes so that I wouldn't wash Gerardo's vintage stuff and shrink his fancy pants that can't go in the dryer. Navigating the wide world of labels is essential for getting shit done right.
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