Lesson 46

Do it yourself

自己动手

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  • Lesson 46
    • 2
  • Do it yourself
    • 3
  • Did the writer repair his lawn mower in the end? Why/Why not?
    • 4
  • So great is our passion for doing things for ourselves,
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  • that we are becoming increasingly less dependent on specialized labour.
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  • No one can plead ignorance of a subject any longer, for there are countless do-it-yourself publications.
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  • Armed with the right tools and materials,
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  • newlyweds gaily embark on the task of decorating their own homes.
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  • Men, particularly, spend hours of their leisure time installing their own fireplaces,
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  • laying out their own gardens; building garages and making furniture.
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  • Some really keen enthusiasts go so far as to build their own computers.
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  • Shops cater for the do-it-yourself craze not only by running special advisory services for novices,
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  • but by offering consumers bits and pieces which they can assemble at home.
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  • Such things provide an excellent outlet for pent up creative energy,
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  • but unfortunately not all of us are born handymen.
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  • Some wives tend to believe that their husbands are infinitely resourceful and can fix anything.
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  • Even men who can hardly drive a nail in straight are supposed to be born electricians, carpenters, plumbers and mechanics.
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  • When lights fuse, furniture gets rickety, pipes get clogged,
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  • or vacuum cleaners fail to operate,
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  • some women assume that their husbands will somehow put things right.
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  • The worst thing about the do-it-yourself game
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  • is that sometimes even men live under the delusion that they can do anything, even when they have repeatedly been proved wrong.
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  • It is a question of pride as much as anything else.
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  • Last spring my wife suggested that I call in a man to look at our lawn mower.
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  • It had broken down the previous summer, and though I promised to repair it, I had never got round to it.
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  • I would not hear of the suggestion and said that I would fix it myself.
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  • One Saturday afternoon, I hauled the machine into the garden and had a close look at it.
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  • As far as I could see, it needed only a minor adjustment:
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  • a turn of a screw here, a little tightening up there, a drop of oil and it would be as good as new.
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  • Inevitably the repair job was not quite so simple.
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  • The mower firmly refused to mow, so I decided to dismantle it.
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  • The garden was soon littered with chunks of metal which had once made up a lawn mower.
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  • But I was extremely pleased with myself. I had traced the cause of the trouble.
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  • One of the links in the chain that drives the wheels had snapped.
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  • After buying a new chain I was faced with the insurmountable task of putting the confusing jigsaw puzzle together again.
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  • I was not surprised to find that the machine still refused to work after I had reassembled it,
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  • for the simple reason that I was left with several curiously shaped bits of metal which did not seem to fit anywhere.
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  • I gave up in despair. The weeks passed and the grass grew.
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  • When my wife nagged me to do something about it,
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  • I told her that either I would have to buy a new mower or let the grass grow.
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  • Needless to say our house is now surrounded by a jungle.
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  • Buried somewhere in deep grass there is a rusting lawn mower which I have promised to repair one day.