Opinion : Trying to play a handy-man genius

 "Playing a genius, when you're not one, is quite a task."

I thought of that line today when I heard that one of my friends fixed his kitchen plumbing, using a Barbie Doll. 

I have never done that, but at least he can say he fixed his problem. Most of my ideas fail as much as you would expect from a guy who can't even fix plumbing with a doll. 

The person who said that quote above is David Krumholtz, the star of the CBS crime series “Numb3rs,” in which a math professor serves as an FBI consultant, and uses mathematical equations to predict where a bank robber will strike next and otherwise solve crimes.

(“Numb3rs,” by the way, is considered a “surprise success” in that it has more people watching it than TV experts expected. That’s what happens when television producers actually try to create a show that inspires people to use their intelligence instead of one that insults their intelligence. People watch shows like “Numb3rs,” and some in Hollywood still don’t know why.)

Krumholtz, despite looking and acting like a math professor in the series, confessed in one interview that he did not do well in math in high school. That’s why he said it’s hard to play a genius when you aren’t one.

I don’t know about acting or being a genius, but I do know about this: It’s hard to pretend to be a competent Mr. Fix It when you are not one.

And a Mr. Fix It I am not.

E, Einstein said, = MC2.

I am not in any way qualified to explain what E,M, or C mean in Einstein’s version of that equation.

But after spending a weekend trying to fix a riding lawn mower and helping two teenagers learn algebra, I have stumbled upon some other mathematical equations that may be expressed as (E=MC2)2, or as my kids are trying to learn, E=MC2 times E=MC2.

I know, I know: One doesn’t typically multiply an entire equation by its entire self in algebra.

But neither does one typically jump-start a riding lawn mower.

So, let’s just dispose of the notion that my mechanical methods are anything close to typical.

Anyway, here’s my formula for   (E=MC2)2:

Exasperation = Mechanical Clutziness2 times Effort = More Cost2

The basic goal of my formula is this: To determine when, in the process of trying to save money by doing it myself, I reach the point that so many parts of the machine I am trying to fix either break, get lost or otherwise become non-functional, that I would have been better off paying a little bit more in the beginning to hire someone who actually knows how to fix it.

One problem is that I am no longer 100 percent incompetent. The advice from guys who actually know what to do, along with some  very exasperating experiences from which I actually learned something (such as having to replace the starter on my 1983 Mercury six times) has enabled me to do a few of the things I could not do before, like maybe 1 percent of the time. For example, I did replace a spark plug on that very same mower on only my third try, and even the new starter went back on the same way the old one came off, and there was only one screw left when I was done. 

But this temporary success renders me unable to remember that when it comes to mechanical items, I am first and foremost, a clutz. So I say to myself, “Spark plug, no problem. Broken belt? I can fix that.”

Sure I can. I can also try to explain the division of polynomials to bored, uninterested teens.

Explaining algebra is just as exasperating, although not quite as messy, as trying to figure out why the mower won’t turn left. 

Take my basic lack of mechanical knowledge, my deficiency in basic skills and my shortage of tools, and multiply all that it by itself, and you have a very high and hard to quantify (but easy to express) amount of exasperation.

After spending hours lying on the gravel, blinking the blowing dust and falling grease out of my eyes, and fidgeting like a 2-year-old in church while I try to find a comfortable position from which to reach the nuts connected at odd angles under the mower, it occurs to me why some guys buy a hoist: They are not lifting the machine up to create easier access to its underside, as it may appear. They have actually surrendered to utter exasperation and have sentenced the machine to death. They are not hoisting the thing; they are hanging it.

After several hours, one missed appointment, one lost part and several bruises and scratches, the new belt was on, the mower reassembled, and the wheels even turned left.

And the engine wouldn’t start.

So I went inside and watched Mr. Krumholtz at least pretend that it is possible to fix complicated things with those formulas.