When Tom was told it would cost 1500 dollars to fix his car he decided to do it himself. Right away his friends knew that was a mistake. Tom makes a leaky faucet worse when he repairs it. Then he calls a plumber, watches what the plumber does, and then fixes the next one himself. Then , he calls a plumber....

“Heck, I’m bound to get it right one of these days. Jeez, man, just law of averages says so”, Tom told his friends. He forgot that his average in Little League was .000. He never even got on base with a walk or by being hit.

Tom replaced all the light switches in his house a few years back. The lights work fine. Turn the switch and the light comes on. Turn the switch down. He did them all backwards. He said he knew the first one was wrong but thought he’d improve with a little practice. Didn’t.

“Well, they all operate the same. That’s what counts”, he says to those who laugh at him.

He painted his last car so he’d get a better price as a trade-in. He painted it red. Good. He didn’t leave a single bad mark anywhere except for the brush marks. Most dealers just laughed. One said he take the car off Tom’s hands for 100 dollars. It was the best deal Tom got.

“Shoulda used a sponge. No brush marks. I didn’t think they’d notice”.

His siding is on perfectly. From a distance it looks very nice. A great distance. Upclose you notice right off that the “boards” run up and down instead of sideways. Tom claims he did it that way to save on wastage.

“Hey, what difference does it make? Up and down is just another direction”.

His patio could be used as a miniature golf course. His neighbors do when Tom’s not around. The table and chairs sit on the high spot. The kids use the low spots for wading.

“Hey, you kids get away from the house and stay in the shallow end”.

Back to fixing the car. The tranny wasn’t running right. It wasn’t running at all actually. Tom blew it up laying rubber by backing up and slamming it into drive. Took the rubber down to the steel. Spread the tranny all over the street. Tom couldn’t see paying someone to fix it when he had all the parts. Just need to buy some superglue.

“Shoot, 1500 dollars. I could make a killing in this racket”.

He laid all the parts out on the patio. They rolled into the water. He then laid them on the porch. It was level. Tom hadn’t gotten around to fixing the porch yet. He looked at the pieces and figured it was just a metal puzzle. Match the pieces that go together and start gluing.

It was fine as far as it went. It went about six feet.