So, Do You Like ... Stuff?

Note: This column appears in the 9/29 issue of The Glendale Star and the 9/30 issue of the Peoria Times I have done a lot of dumb things around the house. I don’t like to brag, but it’s kind of my thing. I’ve put stuff together backwards. I once wiped down our stainless steel refrigerator with a damp paper towel almost immediately after my wife told me not to do exactly that. I have placed items on the ledge of our upstairs hallway, thinking to myself, “I really shouldn’t put this here,” and then knocked it off the ledge later after forgetting it was there. I have spilled water on our laptop computer. I’ve hung pictures on the wall that have fallen down in the middle of the night and scared us half to death. Last year, while putting up Christmas lights and assuring my wife I’d be careful, I carried our ladder out of the garage, but it got caught in the hanging garage door string and caused the unhinged garage door to slam down with the force of a hundred stampeding horses, right in fro...