Today’s assignment, for those playing along at home, is to find a small home-improvement task that you’ve been putting off, and do it. I’m talking about something along the lines of what I chose, which is to finally replace the drawer pulls on the bureau. You could also spackle nail holes, or touch up a teeny paint job, or hang a picture, or pick stickers off the wall–something like that.

I bought the drawer pulls a year or two ago, but when I brought them home and tried to take the old drawer pulls off, I discovered that each one had a nut on the back of what I’d thought was a screw, and that when I tried to unscrew the screw-that-must-in-fact-be-a-bolt, the nut was tightening. Instant despair. Instant giving up. I explained the problem to my dad, who, after a pause in which he was probably wondering where he’d gone wrong with my upbringing, explained that all I had to do was grip the nut with pliers while unscrewing the bolt. Here’s how I heard it, though: “All you have to do is…[static]…[some sort of tool]…[something I’ve never done]….[static].”

This morning I tackled it. I went downstairs, found a tool that brought to mind the word “pliers” (“Does it look like I could pull out a loose tooth with it?”), found a screwdriver, and removed those drawer pulls. It was not easy: those things were installed well over 30 years ago, and they did not want to evacuate the premises. One–probably the one I tightened and tightened and tightened before realizing about the nut–chipped mightily before finally coming loose. But they were out!

And here let us pause along with our brave worker, as she realizes that she has closed each drawer after removing the pulls–to get it out of the way and because it looks tidier that way. Let us turn discreetly away as bad words are uttered. Let us return after she has figured out a method of using screwdriver and pliers to gently pry open each drawer.

And let us turn away again as she realizes that the bolts for the new drawer pulls are much fatter than the old bolts, and that they will not be persuaded to fit no matter how much she clenches her teeth and tries to force them. In fact, let’s allow a curtain to fall gently over this whole scene: drawers sloppily open, nuts and bolts and old drawer pulls in a heap on the previously tidy bureau top, new bolts and drawer pulls abandoned in their too-fatness, ten minutes long since over. We will return tomorrow for part 2 of this particular project.