Wednesday, February 27, 2013

365 Jobs: Handyman Sketches: The Handyman's Birthday

Don't Blame Me, I'm Just Here to Fix the Garbage Disposal: Part Twelve

Birthday, August 19, 2010

Disrespected by English Departments,
Yet pleasantly I putter at Plum Court Apartments.
I free a bath fan mucky with dust,
loosen a tub drain hobbled by rust,
sand smooth some plaster where it feels warty,
silence a chair squeak with WD40
while among computer cables running through hallways,
a cat chases a marble. 
Play is play. 
Always.

Back home, late, family gathers.  As the honoree,
once rising young author
now turning sixty-three,
I blow out candles, cut cake slice by slice.
Unsung bard, good handyman,
I'm twenty-one thrice.



Note: Among my contracting jobs, for many years I've served as the on-call handyman for a group of townhouse-style apartments — or rental units — or whatever one should call an enclosed square of two-story dwellings in a subdivision of Sunnyvale, California.  It's steady money.  As a minor league writer, I need that.
I tried to summarize the experience in prose, but verse seems to work best.  This is Part Twelve — and the end — of the series.

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