Hi, the names Rodney.

I’m what you call a fixit guy.

I fix things.

Anything.

I go round to garage sales and look for anything that’s damaged or just plain broken.

I get this stuff for next to nothing so you might say I have a cost effective hobby.

I have this room under the house for all my stuff.

Most times it’s a jumble of bits and pieces.

But you ask me where anything is I can generally find it.

Not like now, all spick and span, cause I thought my girlfriend was coming round…….but she didn’t show up.

She has a habit of doing that.

My mother is always talking about me fixing things.

Her friends are always bringing their toasters, electric jugs, their hair dryers, anything they have that’s broken down and Rodney the fixit guy will do his best to get it going.

I’ve had a few unusual and dangerous things to fix over the years.

Some items of an electrical nature can be potentially life threatening if you don’t handle them carefully.

See that stain there, I got a bit carried away with a mate’s nail gun one day, took me hours to figure out the problem and just got it sorted as mum walked in, impaled her arm on the back of the door, gees it was funny. I mean how many guys get to crucify their mum.

But she’s a good sport mum, she just laughed, I extracted her from the door and she gave me one of those mum expressions and saying: “Oh Rodney you are a trick, always playing aren’t you. Good thing I didn’t come in a bit earlier, no telling where I might have been speared.”

I’ve had a few close calls but nothing like the day mum comes in looking all sheepish:  ‘Rodney, gees you’re a darlin’ I love how you fix things.

Do you think you could fix something for me?’

Oh mum I said, you know I will. Just leave it over there and I’ll get to it soon as I can.

I was busy with Mr. Schafer’s car stereo and I wasn’t paying a lot of attention so I said yes hoping she’d go away.

When I looked down there was this curiously shaped pink bag lying on the bench.

My first thought was it was something to do with Mum’s sewing. She’s always sewing things. You know dresses and stuff, she once made me some undies out of a flour bag, had my name on the inside and everything, but…. she doesn’t anymore.

I kept on with the car stereo but this pink bag kept catching the corner of my eye.

I looked at it and thought maybe it’s a sort of darning device; mum had all sorts of apparatus to help her sew.

I found myself getting more and more curious and so I took it out of the bag.

Suddenly it dawned on me that this was not a sewing device.

I went in to mum and said Mum, what’s this?

‘It’s my vibrator Rodney, its broken.’

You want me to fix this?

‘Yes Rodney,’ she said.  ‘Lots of people have them nowadays. I don’t know why you are looking so shocked.’

I stammered some sort of protest, but mostly I wanted to be rid of it.

‘Oh, Rodney if you can fix it for me darl I’d be ever so grateful.’

Up until that point mum and I had an unwritten law that what happened in our respective bedrooms stayed there.

You know how it is. Mature people and mature attitudes and I never want to think about my mother and sex. Who does?

And I certainly don’t want her knowing anything about mine.

So there I was mouth open, thoughts racing, wondering…mum…yuck!

I had to get my mind back on the job. I was hoping it was going to be a quick one, oh sorry about that, you know disposable gloves, sanitized the workbench but secretly hoping it might just be a flat battery.

If so I’d have it out of here in no time.

But it was rooted.

Mum said, ‘Damn that’s another 200 bucks I have to find.’

Mum I said, I don’t need to know.

‘Just making conversation Rodney.’

Mum liked making conversation. She could talk under water with a mouth full of marbles.

You know sometimes you can fix things. Just a loose wire here, a battery there.

But no matter how badly you want to, something’s can’t be fixed.

I tried so hard to fix my mum and dad.

When he left I thought I can fix this.

I was an intermediary between them for a while.

I wrote my mother letters from my father.

She’d reply and I realized she was hoping for…….

For something that just wasn’t going to happen.

I stopped.

She kept on asking me for weeks if there was any mail.

I’d say no.

She’d scour through the rubbish in my room, thinking it might be here.

That’s the real reason I cleaned up my room.

I couldn’t stand watching her pain any longer.

We both knew dad was off in Queensland with his secretary and was never coming back.

I don’t miss him now.

Mum still pines a bit but she’s ok.

Something’s you just can’t fix.

Toasters and stereos are a lot easier than emotions.

I’m gonna go and check the answering machine, my, my girlfriend…..

You never know.