This past summer we had the best vacation ever when we went with our extended family to a remote pristine lake cabin in Vermont and hung out. During that time, a tragic loss of eyeglasses occurred. Ken needs his glasses for distance and so when they disappeared from the float while he was swimming he was distraught. 18 of us fanned out in a camp wide search and came up with nada.

Two days passed and my poor husband was incapacitated visually. But one clear breezy morning I decided to go snorkeling without the distraction of dogs and people all about. I slipped in to the lake before half of the camp was up. It was still and as clear as a bottle of tap water. I watched the big and little fish darting around and decided to dive a little deeper and see how long I could hold my breath, and that is when the glasses appeared. I tried to gasp in surprise (yeeha!) then horror (they’re broken!) but I had a plastic tube in my mouth so I just mumbled in delight.
Ken, always handy, fixed them with fishing wire and has been wearing them ever since. For about 2 weeks after the incident he would look at me with true awe and adoration and say “Have I thanked you for finding my glasses yet today?”

Fast forward to this winter, only a few weeks ago. Grey skies, cold spells, hail showers. An iPod that seemed to be acting inconsistently. The only device really, that makes it possible for me to….

get from one kid activity to another, either with an absorbing book on tape, or else with a guest DJ in the back seat spinning the sing-along rock anthems. Also, it made it possible for me to walk that 2 miles on the track without dying of boredom, or to make the dull task of grocery shopping something to look forward to as my alone time while listening to my favorite podcasts. Well, the device started to skip, get stuck, start slow, and then finally, it began to make sickening crunching noises and expired with a sad faced iPod icon, which Ken said was the worst possible news. My MP3 player was pronounced dead. Hard drive gone, he said. You just want a video iPod, he said.

We talked about ordering a new hard drive off the internet for $99 instead of buying a whole new device. A friend said “I know a 12-year-old kid who fixes them for $20.” When I heard that, I knew Ken could fix it. All if took was some coaxing him to try. He was pretty sure it was fried. I said, “Well, what have we got to loose then?” Besides some hair maybe, and some nerve functioning. I once spent weeks trying to fix my last camera and was mercilessly shocked by it until the muscle memory of pain overwhelmed my desire to be handy.

Opening the iPod turned out to be the trickiest part. there are all sorts of tutorials online about how to use a guitar pick and a credit card but that is bunk. He ended up borrowing a special tool for it from a friend, but even then it took further research on my part. The prying device has to angle down, towards the silver, not up, away from your grip as you instinctively wish to do.

So, he opened it. It was a bit dusty, probably from hanging out so often in its nest at the bottom of my purse so often. Blew it out with a can of air and closed it. Tada. No more sad icon. $99 to $300 saved. I’ve been trying to remember to say “Have I thanked you today for fixing my iPod ?” as often as possible. He also pried open my friends and fixed hers too. Thanks Ken, my techno-hero.