SATURDAY MORNING WITH CRANKY DON JOE | Every Home Improvement Project Begins With One Trip to the Hardware Store and Ends With Four

By Cranky Don Joe

My name is Cranky Don Joe. Cranky DJ to a lot of my neighbors. I am not an expert, which immediately makes me more qualified than anybody who has ever told a homeowner that a repair should take about fifteen minutes.

I have been hearing that estimate for most of my adult life, and I have yet to discover what kind of clock these people are using. Fifteen minutes is apparently the amount of time required to complete a household repair after somebody else has found the tools, purchased the correct parts, removed the damaged material, and dealt with whatever the previous owner did to the house. The person giving the estimate generally has no intention of being present when the work begins.

My latest encounter with this peculiar form of optimism started on a Saturday morning when I noticed that the towel bar in the downstairs bathroom was hanging at an angle. It had been that way for several days, although I had managed to ignore it because the towels were still hanging and nobody had complained.

The trouble began when I decided to straighten it. One of the mounting brackets had pulled away from the wall, leaving the bar with a slight downward slope. I gave it a cautious push, hoping the bracket might settle back into position. Instead, it moved farther away from the drywall, and I found myself holding one end of the towel bar while the other remained attached to the wall.

I looked at the clock. It was shortly after eight, and I had no particular plans until the afternoon. I figured I could repair the bracket, put the tools away, and still have time to make breakfast. I had repaired similar things before, and nothing about this one suggested a major undertaking. The bar itself was in good condition, the mounting bracket was intact, and the problem appeared to be a loose screw or a worn plastic wall anchor. I went downstairs for my toolbox, confident that I was dealing with a minor inconvenience rather than the beginning of a full day's employment.

I have owned my toolbox for years. It contains enough equipment to convince a visitor that I know what I am doing, which is one of the reasons I keep it. There are screwdrivers, pliers, wrenches, measuring tapes, spare drill bits, and a collection of screws that I have saved from previous projects. I also have a small plastic container filled with parts whose origins I no longer remember. Every time I consider throwing them away, I imagine needing one of them the following week, so the collection continues to grow. Unfortunately, it has never contained the exact part I needed when I was standing in front of a broken household fixture.

I removed the towel bar and examined the bracket. The screw had loosened because the plastic anchor behind it was no longer gripping the drywall. When I pulled the anchor out, a little dust came with it, and I could see that the hole had become larger than it should have been. I tried one of the spare anchors from my toolbox, but it slipped into the opening without resistance. That settled the matter. I needed a replacement suitable for the existing wall and the condition of the mounting point, and the hardware store was only a short drive away.

I put the old anchor in my pocket and left the house. This was my first trip, and I was feeling quite pleased with my preparation. I had brought the damaged part, knew what the problem was, and had even remembered my wallet. At the store, I found an entire aisle devoted to fastening objects to walls. There were anchors for drywall, masonry, and other materials, along with packages of screws and bolts that appeared capable of holding things considerably heavier than a towel bar. I stood there studying the options until an employee asked whether I needed assistance.

I explained the problem and showed him the old anchor. He asked about the wall and the size of the damaged opening. I told him it was drywall and that the hole had widened slightly. He recommended a replacement anchor and explained that it should work if the surrounding material was still sound. I thanked him, purchased the package, and headed home. The entire visit had taken less than fifteen minutes. I remember this because I was still under the impression that the project was proceeding according to plan.

Larry was outside when I pulled into the driveway. He was carrying a coffee mug and inspecting something near his garage, which is how Larry spends a surprising amount of his free time. He noticed the hardware store bag and asked what I was working on. I told him about the towel bar, expecting him to wish me luck and return to whatever he had been doing. Instead, he put down his coffee and followed me into the house.

Larry enjoys home improvement projects, particularly when they belong to somebody else. He owns a considerable number of tools and has watched enough instructional videos to approach almost any household repair with confidence. I have no objection to confidence, but Larry has a habit of developing it before he has examined the problem. He entered the bathroom, looked at the wall, and announced that the repair should be easy. I told him that was exactly what I had thought before going to the store.

I opened the package and handed him one of the new anchors. Larry tried fitting it into the existing hole. It went in too easily, and when he pulled it back out, there was no resistance.

"That's not going to hold," he said. "The man at the store said it should." "Did you tell him how big the hole was?" "I told him it was enlarged." "Did you measure it?"

I admitted that I had not measured it. Larry looked at the opening again and said the surrounding drywall had weakened enough that we needed to reconsider the mounting method. He was probably right, which irritated me because I had already made one trip to the store and had no interest in discovering that the problem required further investigation.

He suggested a different fastening system, possibly a toggle-style anchor, depending on what we found behind the wall. I asked whether he had the necessary hardware at home. He said he probably did, but after several minutes of discussing the options, we agreed it would be better to purchase something appropriate rather than experiment with whatever was lying in his garage.

I returned to the hardware store. The employee who had helped me earlier was still working in the same aisle. He recognized me immediately and asked whether the anchor had worked. I explained that the hole was larger than I had realized and that the surrounding drywall was not in particularly good condition. He asked whether I could relocate the bracket to sound material. I told him I would prefer to keep the towel bar in its original position, although I was beginning to understand that my preferences were becoming less important to the project.

He showed me another fastening option and explained its limitations. I purchased the hardware along with a small container of patching compound because I suspected the original hole would need attention. By the time I got back home, Larry had removed the remaining bracket and laid the towel bar components across the bathroom counter. He told me he wanted to examine the entire mounting arrangement before we continued.

I asked whether that had been necessary. "Better to understand what we're dealing with," he said. "We're dealing with a towel bar." "That's what you said before the first trip."

I decided not to answer because he had managed to make a reasonable observation in the most irritating manner available.

We checked the wall, installed the new fastening hardware, and secured the bracket. After reattaching the towel bar, I stepped back and admired the result. The bar was straight, the brackets were aligned, and everything appeared to be in working order. I reached for a towel, ready to return the bathroom to normal, when Larry placed both hands on the bar and pulled downward.

The bracket shifted immediately.

I looked at him. "Why would you do that?" "I was checking whether it would hold." "It's a towel bar, Larry." "I know what it is." "Then why are you trying to climb it?"

He insisted that he had not used much force. I told him that whatever amount of force he had used was considerably more than the weight of two bath towels. Larry explained that somebody might grab the bar while losing their balance. I reminded him that a towel bar was not a safety grab bar and should never be treated as one. A proper grab bar requires hardware and mounting designed to support a person. We were trying to hang towels, not install equipment for a gymnastics competition.

Unfortunately, the argument did nothing to repair the wall. The bracket had loosened again, and the drywall around the mounting point had started to crumble. We removed the hardware and examined the damage. The opening was now large enough that simply installing another anchor in the same location was no longer a sensible option. We would have to repair the damaged area and relocate the towel bar to sound mounting points.

I looked at the clock: it was almost eleven, and I had not eaten breakfast.

Larry suggested we take a short break before continuing. I told him that if I sat down, I might never get up again, and the towel bar would spend the rest of its natural life on the bathroom counter. He laughed and offered to make coffee. I asked him to bring the stud finder from his garage instead.

The stud finder was necessary because we wanted to know whether there was framing behind a suitable location for the new brackets. Mine was in the toolbox, but the battery had died. Larry said he had one at home, so he crossed the street and returned with a stud finder, a cordless drill, and a tool bag large enough to suggest that he had misunderstood the size of the project.

We checked the proposed mounting locations. One offered a better opportunity for secure fastening than the original position, but the other still required a suitable hollow-wall anchor. Larry examined the brackets and decided we should get different hardware rather than risk another failure. I asked him whether we were going back to the store. He said we had already learned enough about the wall to make the next purchase properly.

I asked why we had not learned these things before the first two purchases. "That's how projects work," he said.

I was beginning to suspect that Larry had a financial arrangement with the hardware store.

We went together for the third trip. By then the store was considerably busier, with people buying lumber, paint, gardening supplies, and enough electrical equipment to make me wonder whether everybody in Minnesota had decided to repair their houses on the same Saturday. Larry walked directly to the fastener aisle, where the employee recognized me again.

"Still working on that towel bar?" "Unfortunately."

Larry explained that we were relocating the brackets because the original mounting point had failed. The employee listened, asked about the wall, and helped us select suitable hardware for the new locations. He also reminded us to follow the installation instructions and avoid fastening anything into damaged drywall. I appreciated his patience. He had been more involved in my bathroom renovation than anybody outside the household, and he was still speaking to me pleasantly.

Larry added a fresh battery for the stud finder and a drill bit to our purchases. I picked up painter's tape and a sanding sponge for the patched area. When we reached the checkout, I looked at the total and realized that the replacement hardware, repair supplies, and miscellaneous items were beginning to cost more than the towel bar itself.

Larry said that was normal. I asked him whether he had ever considered how much money people would save if they simply stopped touching things around their houses. He told me that was not a practical approach to maintenance. I told him neither was pulling a towel bar off the wall to see whether it was strong enough to hold him.

We returned home and resumed work. This time we took greater care with the mounting locations, checked the manufacturer's instructions, and installed the brackets without attempting any unnecessary strength demonstrations. The repaired section of drywall would need time to dry before it could be finished, so we left it alone while we completed the other work. When the towel bar was finally secured, Larry stepped back and nodded approvingly.

"Now that's better."

I agreed, although I was reluctant to give him the satisfaction. The bar was level and properly attached for its intended use. I put the towels back on it, then removed them because Larry said we should let the repaired area dry without anything getting in the way of the finishing work. By then I had stopped arguing over small details; I wanted to finish the project and get something to eat.

The next problem appeared when I went downstairs to retrieve the leftover bathroom paint. I had kept the can from the last time the room was painted, and I remembered seeing it on a shelf near the furnace. I found it exactly where I expected, which briefly restored my confidence in the household. Then I opened the lid.

The paint had dried completely.

I stirred it anyway because homeowners are not always willing to accept obvious evidence. The contents had developed a thick, uneven consistency that made it clear the can was no longer useful. I checked the label, hoping at least to recover the color information, but part of it had been damaged. I could read the manufacturer's name and little else.

Larry looked at the bathroom wall. "Do you remember the color?" "White." "Which white?"

I asked him how many kinds of white a person could reasonably need in one bathroom. He reminded me that paint colors varied and that even a close match could be noticeable once it dried. He was right again, which was becoming an unpleasant feature of the afternoon.

We discussed whether the repaired area could be matched using a sample. The hardware store had a paint counter, and Larry suggested taking in a small sample from an inconspicuous spot if necessary. I looked at the clock: it was after two, and I had spent most of the day working on a fixture that had been perfectly capable of holding towels when I woke up.

I told Larry we were making one final trip. He asked whether I was sure. I said that if the fourth trip did not solve the problem, I was going to move.

We arrived at the hardware store for the fourth time. The employee in the fastener aisle saw us passing and smiled.

"How's the project?" "I am considering having my mail forwarded to the store," I told him, "because I seem to be spending more time here than at home."

He laughed and asked what we needed now. I explained that we had finished the mounting work, but needed paint for the repaired section. He directed us to the paint counter, where another employee helped us with the matching process. We left with a small container of paint and the remaining supplies needed to finish the wall after the patch had dried.

On the drive home, Larry said he thought we had made excellent progress.

I asked him to explain what he meant by progress. "We fixed the wall, relocated the towel bar, and got everything we need to finish." "We also spent most of Saturday doing it." "Sometimes you have to take your time to do a job right."

I considered that statement while waiting at a traffic light. It was the sort of thing a person says when he has not paid for four trips to the hardware store. Larry was sitting comfortably in the passenger seat, drinking the coffee he had purchased on the way out, and appeared entirely satisfied with how the day had gone.

I asked him whether he had any plans for the following Saturday. He said he might work on his garage shelves. I told him to enjoy himself. He asked whether I wanted to help. I pretended not to hear him.

By late afternoon, the towel bar was mounted securely, the damaged area had been patched, and the remaining supplies were ready for the finishing work. We cleaned the bathroom, returned the tools to the basement, and gathered the packaging that had accumulated throughout the day. I was surprised by how much trash a small repair could produce: empty anchor packages, bits of damaged drywall, scraps of tape, a worn drill bit, and several screws that no longer seemed to belong to anything.

Larry examined the finished installation and told me it looked good. I agreed. It did look good: the bar was straight, the mounting brackets were properly positioned, and the wall would look normal again once the patch was sanded and painted. Anybody walking into the bathroom would assume the fixture had always been there. Nobody would know how many people had been consulted, how many fasteners had been purchased, or how much of my Saturday had disappeared into the project.

Larry offered to return the following day to help with the painting. I thanked him and said I could manage the rest. He looked disappointed, which made me wonder whether he had begun to think of the bathroom as a shared enterprise. I reminded him that the original purpose of the project had been to straighten a towel bar, not establish a neighborhood construction partnership.

After he left, I made a sandwich and sat down in the living room. I was tired, hungry, and mildly resentful of the fact that I had spent almost an entire day accomplishing something that nobody would notice unless I pointed it out. I had expected to finish before breakfast; instead, I had eaten lunch at an hour when some people were beginning to think about dinner.

As I sat there, I began remembering other household repairs that had followed a similar course. A loose cabinet handle had once turned into a search for a replacement screw because the original threads were stripped. A dripping faucet required a part that was not available at the first store. A door that would not close properly led to an afternoon of adjusting hinges before I discovered that the problem was a loose screw in the frame. None of these repairs was especially complicated, but each one had involved some unexpected detail that changed the plan completely.

That is what makes home improvement so difficult to estimate. A person can look at a crooked towel bar and reasonably assume that tightening a screw will solve the problem. Until the bracket comes off, there is no way to know whether the anchor is loose, the drywall is damaged, or the previous installation was unsuitable. Once the fixture has been removed, the homeowner has to deal with what is actually there rather than what he hoped to find.

I thought about the employee at the hardware store, who had asked sensible questions and explained the limitations of the parts he recommended. He had never promised that every anchor would work in every wall. I had been the one who wanted a quick solution, and I had heard his advice through the filter of my own impatience. Larry had also been right about some things, although his method of testing the towel bar remained completely indefensible.

That was the irritating part: I had spent most of the day complaining about Larry, yet he had stayed until the work was finished. He had brought tools, helped check the mounting locations, driven with me to the store, and cleaned up the bathroom afterward. He had also contributed directly to the damage that made some of the additional work necessary, but I decided not to let that erase everything useful he had done. Friendship requires a certain amount of tolerance, particularly when the friend in question is Larry.

The following morning, after the patch had dried sufficiently, I sanded and painted the repaired area according to the product instructions. The new paint matched well enough that the repair was barely noticeable. I stood in the bathroom doorway and admired the result: the towel bar was level, the wall looked respectable, and there was no obvious evidence that two grown men had spent an entire Saturday arguing about drywall anchors.

I was putting the paint supplies away when Larry knocked on the door. He came inside, walked straight to the bathroom, and inspected the repair. He nodded approvingly and said the paint looked good. I thanked him and told him the project was officially finished.

Larry stepped closer to the towel bar and reached toward one of the brackets.

"Don't touch it," I said. "I'm just looking." "You can look from there."

He laughed and stepped back. Then he noticed the bathroom door, which had been sticking slightly for several years. It still opened and closed, although I had developed the habit of lifting the handle a little when pulling it shut. Nobody in the household considered this a serious problem. We had all adjusted to it, and the arrangement worked.

Larry tried closing the door. It caught against the frame. He opened it again and looked at the hinges.

"You know, Don, this probably wouldn't take much to fix."

I continued putting the supplies away.

"Could be a loose hinge screw," he said. "Maybe the door just needs a little adjustment."

I said nothing. Larry opened and closed the door again, studying the way it moved.

"I've got a screwdriver at home that would be perfect for this."

I walked toward the bathroom doorway. "Leave the door alone, Larry." "I'm only saying it might be an easy fix." "That's what you said yesterday." "This is different." "How?" "Well, for one thing, we're not dealing with drywall anchors."

I looked at him for several seconds. He appeared genuinely enthusiastic about the possibility of beginning another repair. He had forgotten the four trips, the damaged wall, and the hours we had spent trying to complete a task that neither of us had expected to occupy the entire day. To Larry, the successful installation of the towel bar was evidence that we were ready for another challenge.

I asked him how long he thought the door would take. He examined the hinges once more.

"Fifteen minutes, maybe twenty."

I opened the front door and pointed toward his house. Larry began laughing before I said anything.

"Come on, Don. It's just a door." "Out." "I could bring the screwdriver over." "Out, Larry."

He walked down the driveway still laughing, and I closed the door behind him. Then I returned to the bathroom and examined the sticking door. I opened it, closed it, and lifted the handle slightly, just as I had done for years. The door shut without difficulty.

I decided to leave it alone for the time being. There was no immediate safety concern, and I could inspect the hinges properly another day when I had the time, the correct tools, and a reasonable understanding of what needed attention. I had learned enough from the towel bar to know that beginning a repair without those things was a good way to spend another Saturday in the hardware aisle.

I went downstairs, made coffee, and settled into my favorite chair. For the first time all weekend, there was nothing I needed to fix: the towel bar was secure, the bathroom was clean, and Larry was safely across the street.

About twenty minutes later, my phone rang. It was Larry. I answered because I have never been particularly good at learning from experience.

"Don, quick question. You remember that screwdriver I mentioned?" "Yes." "Well, I was looking for it, and I noticed one of the brackets on my garage shelf is loose."

I closed my eyes. "Don't touch it, Larry." "I already took it off."

I sat straight up. "What do you mean, you took it off?" "The bracket! I figured I'd tighten it while I was there, but the screw won't hold."

I could hear him moving things around in his garage over the line.

"Do you have any of those wall anchors left from yesterday?"

I looked toward the basement, where I had finally put away my toolbox. Then I looked at the clock. The hardware store had opened twenty minutes earlier.

I asked Larry one question: "How many trips are you planning to make?"

He laughed. "Probably just one."

I hung up on him. Friends, I have seen how this ends.

Until next time, Cranky DJ

❤️ SUPPORT MINNEAPOLIMEDIA

---

STAY CONNECTED TO MINNEAPOLIMEDIA

Local stories matter. Subscribe free to MinneapoliMedia and receive independent news, community reporting and important updates from Minneapolis, the North Metro and communities across Minnesota.

SUBSCRIBE FREE: https://minneapolimedia.town.news/subscribe

MinneapoliMedia | Community. Culture. Civic Life