I Can Fix That

Stick it on with tape.
Stick it on with glue.
Stick it on with chewing gum.
Stick it down with screws.
Stick it with some staples.
Stick it with a spear.
Even maple syrup would probably adhere.
It looks a little wonky,
but at least it works, my Dear.
Don't like the way I fix things?
You can stick it in your ear.

-B.C. Byron

This poem reminds me of a trip I went on with the high school jazz band. I was 17 at the time. A bus full of 20 teenagers driving 5 hours to a band competition in another state, only 2 adults to supervise, and later cramming 5 people to each hotel room. What could go wrong? A lot. We barely slept that night and in all the foolish goings on in the wee hours of the morning, we somehow managed to break off half the door frame in one of the rooms. We didn’t have any real tools beside the ones for cleaning spit out if trumpets and saxophones.

We did NOT want to ask for help from the band teacher or hotel clerk. So we got creative in fixing the door frame. Sometimes you just need to lay out the items at hand and think outside the box. We had a pack of gum, blankets, a retainer, shoelaces, and hair gel that had managed to keep a trumpet player’s hair spiked for more than 24 hours. I don’t really see much hair gel being used these days. Maybe kids today know better than to put gelatinous chemicals on their heads, but it IS a nice way to keep a mohawk upright. I think that kid only had to fix his hair once per week and I’m pretty sure he slept with his hair spiked most nights. The Bart-Simpson spikes wouldn’t even crumple when he got smacked on the head for emptying his trumpet’s spit valve on the kid in front of him in class.

We chose the hair gel for our fix. Like the chair that goes with this poem, the door did not look the same afterward. It was crooked, but the hack job wasn’t noticeable from far away and that was good enough to keep us out of trouble. Our trumpet player complained about the expense of using the entire industrial size gel tub as glue. We also heard complaints from the kid we made stay up until 4 a.m. leaning against the door frame while our makeshift adhesive dried. I feel guilty about it now since the next hotel guests probably took the blame for half the wood falling off. That much hair gel also smells… strange. We got the job done.

A wonky, crooked door frame is better than no door frame, right? Questionable. If you don’t like my poems about fixing things, write your own. A wonky poem is better than no poem, right?