The Wheel

Everyone with ADHD has a story like this.

For my son and I it's the wheel.

Let me explain.

I've always been a mechanical klutz. I think my father was one, too. He ran a TV repair shop in the 1960s. Back then the first thing you did with a TV that came in was take off the back. Then you found what was wrong. Then you fixed it. Then you put the back on again, and finally you used some Windex on the screen and the plastic case. (I found this picture here. It's not exactly related, but it gives you a general idea.)

Trouble was, Dad kept losing screws. We had this enormous paint tray filled with tiny screws, from the inside and outside of TV sets, radios, and phonographs, that somehow never found their way back home. And every day or so, while putting a set back together, he wouldn't be able to find any of the screws, or not enough screws, so we'd go digging into that tray, looking for something that might fit.

I can understand intellectually what is supposed to happen, but actually making it happen is totally beyond me. So despite the fact I live in a very old house, I don't do any handy work. When the toilet stopped working recently I was ready to call the plumber. Then my daughter, whose ADHD symptoms are not as bad as mine, got the bright idea of getting a part at Lowe's. She installed it -- it was a chain, a bar, a new handle for the outside, and a rubber gasket that fit over the water intake at the bottom. Drop the handle, the bar goes up, the chain pulls up the rubber gasket. Sweet.

Back to the wheel.

The wheel is on my son's new bicycle. (The bike above is similar.) ADHD people love bicycles, and my son is no exception. For Christmas last year I got him an expensive new bike, a mountain bike, like he asked for.

Trouble is, to take the bike anywhere, we need to take off the front wheel so we can get it into the Scion, our little gas-sipping car which replaced our minivan a few years ago. And somehow I can't get it back on without the brake (for some reason it's a metal circle which spins inside a plastic braking unit) rubbing against the metal.

I take it to the shop, wheel off. The shop puts the wheel on, and it works. I take it to the car, take the wheel off. Then when I get home I can't get the wheel back on again.

John apparently has the same problem. We just had a big fight over it. We couldn't explain to one another what wasn't working. I said "the problem is the wheel" he said "the problem is the brake" and even though we were both saying the exact same thing we wound up screaming at one another.

He finally took a walk.

The point, a therapist will tell you, is that you need to forgive yourself, and avoid situations that will set you off.

I think we need a bike rack.