uncommonly feeble and random thoughts

We are not unusual, I think, relative to other homeowners. Surely there are small differences, such as we may mow more frequently, or shovel snow more often... no wait, that's my neighbor Trish. Ok,  she and I may have strains of OCD coursing through us. Everyone's on the scale somewhere, right? Notice I didn't say spectrum. But by and large, suburban homeowners either do, or have done, maintenance of one sort or another pretty much constantly. It comes with the territory of home ownership, right? Stuff needs replacing, repairing, repainting, vacuuming, watering... some work is done several times a day, some things happen oh, every quarter century or so.  It just depends on the situation. Load stuff into the dishwasher? Several times a day. Replace windows or a driveway? Hopefully the longer haul... and so many in-between actions, relative to periodicity, such as weeding, or window-washing, or washing the car, and so on. And that's how we landed on this landscaping adve...

It began inauspiciously... a 20+ year old fire pit which hadn't worked in 10+ years or so, maybe it's time for repairs. What could possibly go wrong? So, we called the retailer, they sent a guy, he looked it over, and said it was "too old", couldn't be repaired. A hundred bucks, please.  That can't be right. They just want to sell me a new one... and sure enough, soon came the "offer" to buy a new one, at a mere $4,400.  My thought pattern was, OK, so with cars, the transmission goes. Do you just buy a new car? It depends... how is the rest of the car? Motor, tires, body, AC, brakes, and so on? There's gotta be a repair possible on this thing. Hence the call to a heating/cooling company, a referral from another retailer of LP fire pits (and grills, and such). Guy two comes out, checks it over, says it needs a thermocouple. Which I happen to have! (shocking, I know). But mine is the wrong size, and the right size turns out to be unavailable (Whaat...