How to Fix A Screen Door
If you are a regular reader you’ll note we moved recently and it is not folly to repeat that whenever you move in life the things you thought you own own you and the stuff you haul around with you rarely fit neatly into the places you want to change them into.... life is just that way... Some other things happen in new domestic settings. For example, the folding doors that were left off the upper and lower trackers near the door opening were left off for a reason. Seeking peace and joy rarely implies making judgements about other humans, however, my will power is not hefty enough to hold back a couple here.
The concept of a folding door is understandable. In theory, you can fold a door and expose some of the things in the closet you wish to grab without having to have the swing radius of a traditional door. Well...that’s all well and good until the door mysteriously and usually permanently gets out of the track which holds in the door. How does it hold in the door you ask? My first response includes words you may never hear in church and my second isn’t much better, yet both responses are true. You see there is this metal track that weighs about as much as 19 mosquitos and is always positioned just high enough that a shorter person needs a chair to fully operate the mounting procedure. Now you position a 50 or 60 pound door with one hand while positioning these two spring loaded widget thingies and try to guide them at an angle into the track. Luke’s shot at the exhaust port of the Death Star is infinitely easier than positioning the door in such a way as to secure the door. Some folks claim this is easier in you try it from within the closet..... This assumes the closet is empty and if you don’t have enough to fill the closet well what in the world do you need a door for? Anyway somewhere in the many levels of eternal damnation—just between the insurance corridor and the neck tie inventors’ pavilion there exists a reserved spot for the folks who dreamed up these doors. Oh and across the sea of Milton cottage cheese there is the island of sliding patio screen door creators.
I’ve lived in lots of places and visited more where there is this large rectangle screen door that was designed to serve as a protector from bugs when you want to have your patio door open for fresh air. Now millions of these doors exist yet in my survey of 9 fair minded people evidence suggests that les than 5 in a billion work more than 39 seconds after the original installation. However, being an optimist and problem solver I set out to fix the one on our new digs.
What was need to build a screen door that may keep out 61.4% of the bugs? Well first it requires the better. Part of what have been a. Pleasant day. Next spend at least 29 minutes and 7 seconds with a thesaurus discovering synonyms for every curse word you know and practicing some inventive ways of merging these words with adjectives related to your relatives and some impossible anatomical situations. Run throughout your house slamming your fingers in a drawer or two and stubbing your toe on that closet door you couldn’t hang. Now go to the screen door in question.
Position the door in the desired opening (no not the backside of the door’s original inventor—or at least not yet. Align the rolling spring loaded wheels near the track and slot in the bottom or the top. Get out your old geometry textbook and read the section on acute right triangles and also be prepared to review Isaac Newton’s concepts of inertia and if you have a couple extra minutes scan a mid evil interpretation of Euclidean mechanics and torture devices from the Spanish Inquisition. after using a crow bar and a spatula (no not that plastic non-stick one—the hee man Griller one with the beer opener on one end to position one end of the door call NASA and ask for the engineers responsible for getting Apollo 13 back safe. Now position the door and start to depress the spring loaded wheels on the remaining side and discover the spring and the shell is rustier than a sunken Chevy Nova fender lost when the members of the remedial auto shop club decided to see if they could recreate Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
Anyway that wheel isn’t going into the track Any more than 500 smart people will actually get elected to congress.
So... get out a very sharp instrument, a couple zip ties, a couple of hooks, and a sturdy pair of shoe strigs. Put the hooks into position where you want the door to hang. Take the zip ties and run them through the screen so that they basically are around the metal top side of the door Take the shoestring and run it through the loop you created with the zip tie and wrap it around the hook you screwed into the way or base of the deck/porch. Now tie the string using a square not and leaving enough string to maneuver. The door as needed.
This will hold your screen in place leaving a few gaps here and there. If some bugs crawl or fly in remember these insects have been on the planet longer than humans for a reason and that you have a deck to be outside in their territory and they are just checking out yours.
Oh and of course realize that all screen doors eventually get run into by something heavy like that deck chair, your favorite cooler, or Uncle Frank after he discovers said cooler.
So... how is this seemingly frustrating adventure connected to seeking peace and joy?
Well you see.... well you win some and you learn some. When you attempt this sort of thing it allows you to be inventive and to stretch beyond the everyday routines and that’s where the muscles of curiousity and persistence get exercised. Oh and you may need those new curse words again so there is some skill building ther.
get outside and don’t worry about keeping outside out...
Happy Spring/Summer!
Going out to put on the screen door now...
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