Commentary: Just smashing!

Garage door glitch turns into weighty situation

Science tells us the human brain is very much like a super computer. It can quickly recognize a situation, determine all the alternatives and filter all possible solutions before selecting the one that yields the best outcome.

Well, some people's brains, anyway. Firemen. Jet fighter pilots. Anyone considering pizza toppings.

Mine? Not so much.

OK, there's a story here. Kind of figured, didn't you?

It seems garage doors work off two pretty big springs. That's what allows the really, really heavy door to glide up and down fairly effortlessly. If both of them break, well, your door (did I mention it's really, really heavy?) isn't going anywhere.

So now you're wondering just how the door enters into all this (or just what kind of a stupid stunt I pulled this time). It's important to remember that some people (me, perhaps) are very much like Russia: It appears we exist solely to serve as a warning to others.

Seems, the other day, for some strange reason, I had to leave the house. Considering it was pouring rain and a Saturday and the Razorbacks were playing in Omaha, whatever it was must have been incredibly vital (I think we were out of Diet Dr. Pepper. As I said, vital).

Now, everything I know about garage doors was summed up earlier. But when I hit the button and the door went up about three feet and stopped after a loud pop, even I could determine that noise probably wasn't a champagne cork celebrating the outstanding service our particular door was giving us.

Since I am, in fact, a red-blooded American, my initial reaction was, "I have no idea how this works, I'm not really sure what's wrong and I've never done anything like this before in my life. Of course I can fix it!"

The next step, besides standing there for an indeterminate but probably wasted amount of time staring at the apparatus that raises the door, was to go to the modern equivalent of your mechanically inclined uncle: YouTube.

The disadvantage of this is YouTube doesn't have every tool known to man, carefully oiled and hanging on pegboard in a space designated by the careful outline of the tool in his garage. On the plus side, YouTube just tells you what you want to know, doesn't mention how much better things used to be made and sigh or snort when you ask a stupid question.

Of course, it's not particularly reassuring when a YouTube video starts "garage doors are very heavy and can cause horrible injury or even death if mishandled. It's highly recommended that you don't attempt to fix the door yourself. You can kill yourself. We're not kidding. The thing weighs more than a Buick and can crush you like a grape. Seriously. DON'T MESS WITH IT! We've not even joking here. Now, step one ..."

After watching the video long enough to a) get really bored, and b) convince myself the only thing I actually needed, besides skill or anything close to the proper tools to do the job, was more manpower, I did the only sane thing I could think of. I called for my youngest son.

The plan, as I outlined it, was I was going to pull the cord that released the door, my son would catch it, I would quickly bend down and help him lift the door out of the way, we'd get the car out, smoothly lower the door and call someone to come fix it on Monday. As a backup, I was going to put a plastic flower pot (safety first!) under the door, just in case. How could that possibly not work?

Did I mention garage doors are really, really heavy? Yeah, well, they are.

So heavy, in fact, that when I did pull the cord, the door dropped as daintily as a safe from a 10-story building and turned the flower pot into a recyclable pancake, leaving just enough space to trap, but not break, my son's fingers.

Now I'd like to say what happened next was the result of my paternal protective instincts. In fact, it was my super computer determining that, if my son broke his fingers, I'd have to drive him around everywhere. The super computer then determined that if I broke my foot, I'd get one of those cool deals that look like an elevated skateboard with handlebars that I've seen people with foot injuries at my office scooting around on. I mean, I bet I could pop wheelies on one of those.

That's why I stuck my foot under the door.

Now, as you can imagine, the scene made it appear very much like we were a Stooge short of a full set. However, my foot gave my son just enough room to get his hands out with no breaks, and the flower pot supplied just enough room for me to pull my foot out with only a few scratches. And no cool scooter. Dang it!

At this point, we decided to take YouTube's advice and call for a repairman who, graciously, came out and got the door up. He didn't even laugh too much when we explained the smashed flower pot.

So, all's well that ends well. Or at least ends without an idiot and his son breaking something. At this point, you're probably chalking that up to dumb (emphasis on "dumb") luck. I, however, know better.

It was all the super computer.

Commentary on 06/19/2015

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