Anything is Fixable
A LIFE LESSON FROM POPS
My Pops made the rather unfortunate mistake of telling me on multiple occasions that anything was fixable. I was a simple kid, often taking everything I was told very literally. It made me an easy victim for the retrospectively gaudy infomercials of the 90s/early 00s — any product that had the word “magic” in their name was my Kryptonite and I’d inevitably harass every adult in my life that a fifty dollar blender was a necessary purchase. Up until I was in the third grade, I don’t think most adults in my life had fully realized the weight I put on their word. Any bold claim or promise made in my vicinity was legally binding — a hand shake between two wise guys.
To Pops’ credit, his solemn declarations of his ability to fix things occurred in specific moments of mine and my siblings’ panic. He was equipped. A bandaid for every scraped knee, a battery for a lineage of dead tv remotes. Even in moments where it seemed impossible: broken pencils with no sharpener in sight, the man would pull out his Swiss army knife and chip away at the wood until the lead came through. Pops was scrappy as hell. It was also my understanding at the time that he literally fixed things for a living. As a network engineer for a telecommunications company he troubleshooted network issues for large corporations — this only furthered my staunch belief that he was a sort of god-level handyman to all of life’s problems.
So it is no surprise that on that fated February day in 2007, it was time for Pops to pay the pied piper. I was nine years old, staring up at the clock at the head of the classroom (probably with my mouth hanging open) wishing the hands would move quicker so I could go home. My trance was broken by my third grade teacher, complaining in defeat about his final working stapler being broken by one of my peers. This was broken stapler number 10. The guy was about to launch into a sermon about the ethics of educators paying for their own classroom supplies (to a room full of snot nosed kids might I add), when it hit me: Anything is fixable… Pops could fix this. He could fix anything.
My hand shot up with the intensity of a pop tart out of the toaster. “My dad could fix the staplers. He could fix aaaanything” I said with unwavering confidence. My teacher, Mr. Z, chuckled and said “I’m sure he could, but I’ll just go buy new staplers. These are jammed. Really broken.” I took this as a challenge — how dare he bring doubt to my dad’s good name? And in front of a classroom full of my peers? I wouldn’t stand for it. “He really can. I’ll bring them home with me today and they’ll be fixed by tomorrow”. Likely with the hopes of moving on, Mr. Z sighed and agreed. “Okay, sure — bring them home and see if he can fix them”. I quickly shot back with “he can fix anything” as I packed 10 metal staplers into my pink Hello Kitty backpack.
Pops picked me and my siblings up from school that day in his white work van. I struggled to lug the extra 10 lbs in my backpack as I trekked to the car. I recall my dad even asking why my backpack was so heavy as we loaded into the car; I played dumb and simply shrugged my shoulders. Like any other ride home, Nessa and Goyo shared the front passenger’s seat while I sat (sans seatbelt) atop my dad’s makeshift center console filled to the brim with his favorite Japanese peanuts, beef jerky, and candy.
We got home and each went our own ways. I wasted no time and immediately started unpacking all 10 staplers. My dad ran over in confusion and panic “w-w-what is all this?”. I looked up with excitement and said “Papi, all of my teacher’s staplers broke and he said he was gonna throw them away but I remember you told me you could fix anything so I told him you could fix them all by tomorrow”. His eyebrows furrowed and his eyes widened. “Why would you tell him that?” He said with annoyed astonishment. Pops’ voice always does this high pitch thing where it almost sounds like he’s whispering in anger to you. I looked at him like he was the one who just wasn’t getting it. “Because you told me you could fix anything?” I mean, how could he really argue with that logic? He took the staplers and groaned with frustration.
For the rest of the day, Pops sat with pliers repeatedly playing the world’s most un-fun game of Operation on a bunch of Swinglines. Now, Pops served in the Army and I’d argue that no torture he endured in bootcamp came close to the misery of prying staples jammed by sticky fingered third graders. Maybe it was because he had a rep to protect, maybe it was because he could actually fix anything — Pops fixed all 10 staplers by the end of the night. Upon finishing his last surgery, he turned to me with bloodshot eyes and choppily said “don’t ever do that again”.
The next morning, I packed up and headed out — ready to brag to my doubtful teacher that my Pops could, in fact, fix anything. I’ll never forget the look of bewilderment on Mr. Z’s face as I emptied the repaired gadgets from my backpack. He immediately scrapped his morning lesson plan and had the class work on a collective thank you card for my dad. I, of course, governed the entire operation — laboriously assigning marker colors that each of my peers would use to sign their names. My autograph stood out amongst a sea of lavender and green, as I was somehow the only one assigned with my favorite fuchsia marker. I vaguely remember giving Pops his card, and although I’m sure he was touched, I doubt it was adequate recognition for the work he did.
I hadn’t realized it at the time, but Pops saying anything was fixable was less of a flex and more of a moral for my siblings and I to follow. In fact, when I think of it with an adult brain, “anything is fixable” being a response to my moments of panic wasn’t him saying “I can fix anything” — it was him saying “you can fix anything… with a bit of creativity and tenacity”. Because there’s always AAA batteries in the fridge for dead remotes; and for every broken pencil, your Swiss army knife is ready for chipping; and for every kid of yours who comes to you with ten broken staplers she promised to mend (with no clue how to), there’s some rusty pliers in your toolbox and your belief that anything is fixable.