Waiting is the name of the game this time of year

The interim pause between the spring season and the start of summer should be called, “Waiting for the ….” You can fill in the blanks. This could be anything from the plumber to the air-conditioner man to the electrician. You can call for help, but more than likely you will put on a list, much like the standby roster for an airline, only it would be quicker to get a seat on the flight.

If you don’t live with a handyman, you are in for the long haul to get anything fixed. I always envied those neighbors whose garage doors were open, and the husband was in there looking like he was doing all kinds of stuff to fix the house. There is always a lot of wood and tools scattered around the entrance.

I don’t have that luxury; I can’t even get the garage door to open, and the guy who installed it still isn’t back from his winter vacation in Antigua. We consider it a victory that it is stuck halfway open, so we can at least crawl underneath to retrieve the hose.

When I was in college I saw a play by Samuel Beckett called “Waiting for Godot.” It was about a couple of guys waiting for someone named Godot, who never showed up. Personally, I never understood the play, having agreed to go enthusiastically, mainly to impress my date that I not only was very intelligent, but extremely artsy and could stay awake even if I was developing numbness in my legs due to lack of circulation in my fake brain.

At that time, intelligent was considered very “in.” This was demonstrated at the height of smartness by couples holding a fondue party, where you heated oil to the temperature of Mars and dipped artery-clogging bread and cheese into this vat and ate communally. Wearing clogs on your feet was a must, as was sitting on the floor using such terms as “linear expressions of the meaning of life and deconstruction theories of sensual experiences.” Huh?

Funny thing is, I actually ran into my former date for the play a few years later. He introduced me to his wife, who was kind of into the arts. She was starring as the featured pole dancer at the Bada Bing Club.

We’ve come a long way since then in terms of proving our intelligence. We simply don’t talk to anyone and instead spend our communication skills working on high-tech devices and games that involve slinging animated birds and pigs through the air. Anyone can do this. Sales of pretend iPhones and fake iPads have skyrocketed.

The best thing that can happen to you during this interim is to befriend a guy who knows how to fix stuff. I knew someone who could move refrigerators with one hand. He drove around in a silver pickup truck with tires the size of South America. The four bulldogs riding shotgun were almost as big. His name was Beauford, but his friends, well he actually only had one, called him Excessive Force.

Anyway the guy was a genius, not in the “Jeopardy” sense, but as in hand me the double 40 wrench and extra-large crowbar.

Beau was like a rock star in the neighborhood. Every woman hoped he would stop by and do stuff like roof in the outdoor porch or pour a cement patio floor while she fixed him a cup of coffee. We hung flags outside our front doors that said “Open.”

Unfortunately there aren’t enough Beaus to go around. So you are just going to have to put your name on the waiting list and wait for the cows to come home. In fact, I think I see a couple of Holsteins at my front door. Got to go!