Wires and Fuses and Leads...Oh My!

Its a common question that I have seen and heard women contemplating about us Men.

What is a man's fascination with leads, wires and taking electronic items to bits?

Her indoors often rips the pee out of me. In ten years she has never seen the point of my need to fiddle. With electrics you understand.

Like today.

I decided that now that I have a tiny corner of the living room rather than a room of my own (stolen from the kids) in the old house for all my stereo and computer stuff (called random junk by her), it needs rearranging. Lots.

Granted we have only lived in this house since mid May, and yes, I have moved it about twice previously, but its not the point.

Stereo is important. You cannot listen to music and appreciate it in the same way without having the right speakers, amp and turntable. Its a known fact.

If you're a man that is.

Its also important to get the stuff set up just right. Or the speakers vibrate, or, even worse, the turntable is upset by something and the record jumps. 

And then there are leads.

Another thing for which she doesn't understand.

I'm often asked, in a sarky fashion, why it is that I have a large box of leads, and whether it is imperative that I keep every charger lead (including Nokia 3210) that I have ever owned? And why was it that when we moved from Kent, 3 years ago, I managed to remember the lead box but not her handbags and umpteen shoes?

Well, because they are leads. Shoes can be replaced. Leads are a pain in the arse to source if you need one. 

Unless you have my squirrel like ability to hoard them.

As for my need to pull thngs apart, yes I admit that there have ben times when I have blown things up.

Like the year we had an electric heater (pre-kids) as the rads weren't working.

Trouble was, it stayed on for a toasty ten minutes, then would cut out. So I rejigged it so it didn't.

Until one evening we were happily and warmly sitting on the sofa watching TV and a loud bang, followed by blue flame leapt from the heater, plunging us into darkness.

Or the computers which did around about the same sizzle then die thing.

But to fail is to learn. And now I'm pretty hot at taking PCs to bits and making them better. Which is why I sort out her PC when it breaks, and she doesn't. 

The only thing she has me on?

Engines.

It is true that I once fitted a new engine in a van.

Which was fine until the battery died.

And I decided to run the engine to get the battery back to life. Which would have been great except the Air Filter (paper) fell onto the increasingly hot engine.

And what makes it worse was it was bonfire night. 

Better to stick to stereos.....

Image: renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net