Monday, July 26, 2010

Mommy MacGyver

 (image from droidup.com)

Queen Teen's wheelchair broke last night, so this morning I stood in the kitchen with the chair, holding the seat back in both hands, wondering what the heck I was going to do. It was a gorgeous July morning, one of those rare summer days that starts out cool and gray and then the sun starts to shine cheerfully, but the breeze keeps the heat at bay. Perfect walking weather. And here we were with a broken chair.

Bollocks.

Queen Teen looked at her chair and then at me and said sadly, "I don't think you can ever fix it."

"I'll try." If I could find an allen-wrench I could replace the bolt that had fallen out, but of course all the allen-wrenches in this house had vanished. We own three sets, but can you find one when you need one? Nope. On to plan B.

I found some zip ties and threaded them through the holes, which seemed to hold, but when we started our walk we hit a bump in the sidewalk and they snapped. Damn. Back home, Queen Teen and I stared at the wheelchair again and she sighed deeply. "It can't be fixed."

"Yes it can," I declared. I went into the house and found the duct tape.

First I threaded two pipe cleaners through the holes and twisted them tightly. Then I wrapped duct-tape around the entire broken section, taping the back of the seat into place. If duct-tape can't hold it, nothing will.

We set out again with the dog happily trotting beside us and when we hit the bump the tape and pipe-cleaners held. Queen Teen cheered. "You fixed it, Mommy. You fixed it. And you didn't have to wait for Rick."

Yep, just call me Mommy MacGyver.

3 comments:

Confessions of a Closet Hoarder but you can call me Judy said...

I love this!

Way to be a hero to QT! :)

alpharat said...

Seriously, is there anything duct tape can't fix? Nice job saving the day!

Sarcastic Bastard said...

Where there's a will, there's a way. Good for you! I'm impressed.