Writer's Block: DIY

[lunadelcorvo]

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• I once rewired an ethernet connection through the walls of the office I worked in using a paperclip, a disassembled ball-point pen, string and some tape.
• I have also repaired a car engine (alternator, actually) using a crowbar, a hacksaw, and a nut and bolt scavenged from an old dining room table.
• I have wired an electric circuit using pennies when making a battery-powered Statue of Liberty out of a Barbie doll, a Christmas light and a cut and shaped plastic comb for a switch.
• I replaced a jewelry box hinge with an old pin-back and a straight pin.
• And repaired a plaster-and-lath overhang with paper towels, coat-hanger pieces and spackle.

That's all that come to mind at present, but there are countless others. This is a long, and time-honored tradition among the women in my family, in fact. We even have a word for it:

fa-HUM-mich* verb, etymology unknown. To jerry-rig, fabricate, fix, hot-wire, or otherwise finnagle something out of unlikely bits and parts.

(*That's a phonetic spelling, since I don't think I have ever before in my life actually written it out before!)