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How Much Repenting Do I Need to Do? — Tabula Rasa
I need theological advice.
Today started calmly enough. I work at home and was quietly surfing Ricochet when Mrs. T informs me that the garbage disposal isn’t working. So I hit the reset button. No dice. I then tried to unfreeze it with the Allen wrench. Won’t move. I remove the old disposal and some pretty despicable water gets on me, to which I respond with some mild cursing.
Off to Home Depot I go, and after shelling out $100 (plus tax) I have a new garbage disposal. That’s when the problems started.
First error: I believe instructions exist solely to correct installation errors after they have been made. I had some wiring issues that I didn’t anticipate. The issues were more complicated than I thought they’d be, so I uttered a few more unseemly words. To summarize the rest of the story, I hit a few more bumps in the road and said a few more words that I should have kept to myself.
Mrs. T usually leaves the premises when I engage in any kind of plumbing, but she was around to hear me cursing; so I was in trouble with her a while. That trouble has dissipated somewhat now that I have successfully replaced the disposal and no leaking has been seen (yet).
So here are the questions? Is it really a sin to engage in a bit of mild profanity while engaging in a home plumbing job? I’ve always felt there should be a home repair exemption, especially for plumbing jobs (especially if it requires the complete removal of a toilet). Can you help me out? How much repenting do I need to do?
Published in General
Agree w/ Psuedo, a venial sin.
I tackled a slow bathtub drain using a snake attachment for a power drill. I removed the hair trap cover from the drain & saw a metal bar bisecting the drain opening. The opening wasn’t large enough for the snake’s coil. Curses. Used pliers to reshape the coil, got it down the drain & cleared the clog. Uh, oh. I couldn’t get the coil through the opening. Sludge flew around the bathroom after I yanked the coil free. More curses. Very unladylike but the tub still drains beautifully.
I’ve also cleared a slow shower drain with hair trap grouted in place. I muttered through that project.
Just love my dad’s ancient professional quality toilet auger; an essential item during potty training.
This is also why nearly every English town of significant size used to feature a street with this distinctive name.
This does raise a whole new issue. I’m a farm boy. The substance otherwise known as “feces” was not an abstract concept; it’s something I stepped in every day. On our farm, we called it by its popular name, and it wasn’t considered cussing of any kind. Say “feces” to a farmer, and his answer with be “Huh? What’s that?”
Q: What is the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of Ricochet?
A: Ricochet 2.0
(Just kidding! Progress has been swift, and I am a believer in the ultimate advantages of R2.0.)
While I understand that there is a risk cursing God or neighbor, getting POed at an elevator or a toaster should not carry much of a penalty, unless the elevator decides to hold you hostage or the toaster decides to burn down your house.
To this day the Anglo-Saxon word in question is the only “swear word” we’re allowed to say in front of my mother. She also grew up on a farm, but is now well acclimated to the city.
I have long since ceased from calling down Divine damnation on recalcitrant hardware, stubborn fittings, buggy software, etc, because it’s frankly counterproductive.
I try to refrain from verbally dispatching jerks and fools to the dark underworld, although I’ll admit it’s hard to toe that particular line sometimes.
As for the scatological and reproductive words, I find that those typically chosen (and it’s the same in all languages with which I have some familiarity) are especially useful in relieving stress, due to the explosive coupling of a longish hissing expiration followed by a hard consonant. Very gratifying in moments of acute frustration.
However, I only call upon the Name of the Lord in prayer and supplication. I would never use my a friend’s name so lightly, how much more so that of my Redeemer. And I’m quite uncomfortable around people who do so with abandon.
Them’s my rules.
Someone on facebook posted that a friend was asking if it was a sin to cuss while fixing a garbage disposal. Then I come on here and see this post and I’m thinking “What the? Does the person on Facebook come to Ricochet and I don’t know it?” Then I realized the Facebook friend was someone I “met” on Ricochet. Oh, this digital world…
You must root for the same teams I do.
I just wish there was a site for conservatives that can handle handyman tasks !
Here’s an update. I fixed my garbage disposal by following the advice here. #5 was probably the easiest most effective repair I’ve ever utilized. Tabula, did you attempt these fixes?
Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards.
Job 5:7
Genesis 3:
When inanimate objects frustrate us, we are to learn humility, for this is part of the consequence of the corruption of sin that we have allowed to bring God’s perfect creation into ruin.
Mike Rowe’s web site?
By the way, garbage disposals really sound like a decadent technocratic luxury for progressive pansies to me.
Real men deal with garbage with their bare hands!
There is a home maintenance exemption. Your wife can choose to help or leave, but she can’t criticize without exempting herself from the “being the recipient of profane directives” clause. When my disposer went I bought am industrial replacement. It was so big I had to cut a hole in the bottom of the cabinet to fit it in. I set new profanity records with that installation. The unit failed with a month left in its five year warranty, so now we have a second unit. I can grind up beef bones if I want to. It was worth all the aggravation and every penny.
And to think your grandfathers or great-grandfathers probably worked as plumbers, electricians, handy-men and building supers.
A dear friend used to say he was the last Jewish plumber in America. Too much book-learnin’, ‘bochers.
Geez!
I’m a big Visitors fan.