Bash Street Kids
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Discoveries | 21 comments
My first car was a blue mini van. Low slung and basic, it carried my wooden toys to Covent Garden market and was my horse and carriage when I went to visit my mum, in Oxford. In fact it was when I was driving back to London from one of these visits that I heard on the radio that John Lennon had died.
The van had a small recurring fault – the carburettor would stick and we’d slowly grind to a halt. The AA man that appeared on the scene when this initially happened, showed me a handy trick – he knocked the belligerent part smartly with a hammer. From then on I carried a hammer in the van for this very purpose. Friends were impressed that I could ‘repair’ the van with just a hammer. I never let on.
This knocking trick has come in handy over the years. Our fridge freezer is a temperamental beast that often plays dead. A few weeks ago I discovered that by giving it a good whack and a rocky Strictly Come Dancing hug it eventually sprang back to life with a noisy whirr.
The fridge freezer feigning dead was swiftly followed by the dishwasher refusing to start when required. A smart tap beside the control switch with the back of my hand worked a treat and eventually it returned to normal – clearly averse to this daily beating.
Meanwhile the washing machine no longer likes to be controlled by the onboard computer (who would?) and has to be eased manually through each programme. The toaster has started to grill just one side of a piece of toast – I haven’t tried the bash technique on this yet as it’s rather flimsy. But I’m tempted.
Oh for an appliance that lasts for years. At least the hammer is still holding up after 28 years…
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Oh, I forgot to say – as a reformed computer technician, I can safely say that bashing things was a favourite technique to make recalcitrant PCs behave. We called it Percussive Maintenance 😉
As our electric kettle is on the way out again (it still heats water, but it’s getting increasingly difficult to open the lid!) and we’re fed up of replacing them every couple of years, we have just invested in a proper (whistling!) hob kettle with a 10 year guarantee….
There is actually a name for this technique in our house: “Percussive Maintenance” sounds soooo much more technical and almost as though you know what you are doing 🙂
Takes me back to the days when we were short of money and everything was breaking down, the last straw was a vacuum cleaner and I burst into tears – not a common occurrence for me as I am not usually the emotional sort. You have my sympathy too and I long for appliances that don’t breakdown.
A good slap usually sorts out recalcitrant teenagers too!
Oh I remember the trick with the Mini – it works on starter motors as well! So funny.
My first new car was a yellow Mini – I loved it. It had the same fault as yours! I also carried a hammer and it always worked.
I once had a boss get my ancient Toyota Tercel going again with a hammer and a screwdriver- that was a pretty neat trick and I was impressed. Of course, that was the same Tercel that tried to kill me be hydroplaning in the rain on the freeway at 55 MPH and went careening off the freeway into the center divide and stopped just short oncoming traffic on the other side.
There’s a lot to be said for newer, safer things…I still hate driving in rain….
My minivan ‘Priscilla’needed persuading with an umbrella at times ,sticky petrol pump ,mounted on rear subframe. Also when raining newspaper ,whole one,shut in bonnet and over outside of grill to keep plug leads dry and working at Heathrow at the time squeezy bottle of neat washing up liquid in the door pocket to rid the screen of kerosene.Happy days !
We are going through a period when all our appliances and the car are fall apart too (actually the house is joing in). Its most testing, you have my sympathy.