Meine Tur ist Kaput.

My (garage) door is broken.  Yeah, I could have made that the title, but I like kaput better than broke.  Broke makes it sound like my door over invested in Enron and Dotcom stocks.  I wish I had listened to my door.  My portfolio ist kaput as well.

It worked fine last night.  This morning, I pressed the button and nothing happened.

I pressed the button again.  Nothing still.  I pressed it harder thinking that might work.  It makes the elevator come faster doesn’t it?

So I turn on the garage light and head out to check things out, as if I might actually be able to fix what is wrong with the garage door opener.

I try using the remote in the car on the outside chance that the button I just pounded into the wall ist kaput.  The remote fails me.

The garage light is on and I doubt there is a separate breaker for the lights, and the unit is still plugged into an outlet without a fuse so it appears that the problem is not Scotty–we have enough power but we can’t raise the forward shields.  And I can’t get my car out of the garage.

My door ist kaput.

I look up at the unit as if I could figure out what might be wrong.  But there is no obvious abnormality.  Other than some dust and dirt, it looks just like new.  I sigh and disengage the door and open it manually.

All I know at this point is that this is probably going to run into some money.  These things always do.  They never say there is a wire loose and they fixed it.  That’ll be $10.  No.  I will not hear that.

I will consider myself lucky if I don’t have to replace the whole unit.  With my luck, I’ll probably need a whole new door.  And a new garage.  And while we’re at it . . .

That’s how we fix things these days.  It doesn’t matter if it is a transistor radio, a home computer or a HDTV.  I have at least two VCRs that are in various stages of disrepair.  It truly would cost more to fix them, or at least that was what I was told.  I don’t think they know how to fix them, so they tell you that just to get you to buy a new one.  I’m not going to pay someone that much money to fix it, but I keep pretending that someday I will figure out how to do that myself.  Of course, by that time I will be senile and won’t need them and they won’t be producing VCR tapes anymore.  Do they even make them now anymore?  But I digress.

It’s always cheaper just to buy a new one.

You’d think that someone who knew how to actually fix something could become very popular.  But he or she would actually have to work, and in the end, it would probably be cheaper and faster just to buy a new one.  It’s really kind of sad when you think about it.  All that electronic equipment just wasted because no one can repair it cheaper than it is to reproduce it.

I could just continue to put the door up and down manually.

Yeah, that’ll happen . . . right after I get it fixed for ten bucks.