RIVER CITY JOURNAL: HONEY, COULD YOU FIX THE (INSERT BROKEN ITEM HERE)?

I would happily discuss the moral consequences of world peace all day long, but don't ask about the dripping faucet.

Without noticing it, the Sullivan household has been coming apart at the seams.

I call it the creeping domino effect. This is when something smaller than a domino goes haywire and you ignore it. Next thing you know, you are drowning in a sea of used hangers from the cleaners.

Let's face it. One or two little problems can be put off until tomorrow or next weekend. But when there are a dozen or more little problems around the house, watch out. Disaster is about to strike.

My wife and I didn't realize things were so rotten until our younger son arrived for a visit. He was using the exercise machine when a pulley went bonkers. Fortunately for him, there was no permanent physical damage. As for the exercise machine, it looked like it had been attacked by a spaghetti monster. Its cable was coiled in curlicues never imagined by the manufacturer.

It was obvious that Son No. 2 and I were destined to a weekend of fix-it projects. As long as we were going to the store to shop for a pulley, it seemed like a good idea to get those funny little light bulbs that go around the mirror in the big bathroom. And it was really important to my wife to have the stereo sound system in working order again.

I don't know about you, but I'm about as mechanical as a pile of mud. My vision of an ideal world is one in which every gizmo does exactly what you expect it to when you turn on the switch. If the coffee grinder stops grinding coffee, it doesn't make much sense to me to deconstruct a small machine into a gazillion pieces and expect to create order out of chaos. My solution is to head for the nearest store that sells coffee grinders -- which is what the manufacturer had in mind in making such a shoddy grinder in the first place. I am one of those people who understands the big picture of planned obsolescence and its importance to the world economy.

My wife and younger son, on the other hand, are frugal to the core. It's those genes they got from her father, who would spend all day tinkering with the light-dark control on a toaster. And at the end of the day the toaster's light-dark control would be working, or you could get ham radio signals from Uruguay.

I was ready to (A) go buy another exercise machine and (B) another stereo system and (C) another master bathroom before I was tackled by my younger son, who said, "Heck, we can fix these things." Strange words from someone who just yesterday wouldn't ride his bike without training wheels. Or so it seemed.

Away we went in quest of repair items. A store that sells farm implements had pulleys. A hardware store had connectors for stereo cables. And a local supermarket, of all places, had the funny lights with the itty-bitty bottoms that fit around the mirror in the master bathroom.

Marching back home I felt like a hunter-gatherer who had just felled a mastodon, guaranteeing a six-month supply of meat instead of having to go to a convenience store twice a day.

While I screwed in light bulbs -- which my wife immediately started switching around because some were brighter than others -- younger son tracked down stereo wires in the attic. It turned out the problem was one of those buttons you never use on the amplifier (whatever that is) had been pushed in. It should have been left out. Magically, the stereo worked again. To my wife's utterances of utmost glee I calmly responded that we had tweaked the tuner and did something -- what was it? -- oh, yeah, modulated the ohms. At least that's what younger son coached me to say so I could be the hero.

The exercise machine works perfectly, which takes away the last excuse I had for not wanting to use it. Not every story has an entirely happy ending.

All in all, the riot of little irks had been quelled. Order had been restored. My wife put a compact disc in the player (she knows how to get those blasted plastic containers open), and soothing music filled the air.

"How does a CD player work?" she asked.

"Beats the heck out of me," I replied.

"Oh, good. That makes me feel better," said she.

Harmony is a fine thing in a household. I heartily recommend it. All you need is a 22-year-old son to make things work.

~R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.