The Fantastic Feeling of Fixing what’s Fucked Up

I have been a full-bearded fella for a long time. Pretty much ever since I could - both by my career allowing me to have facial hair, and my face allowing me to grow said facial hair. This was especially helpful as I went bald, and the beard helped to balance things out on my otherwise naked noggin. Growing a beard is easy, keeping it nice to look at takes some effort.

To keep a beard looking nice, or at least as nice as one is able, there’s a variety of things needed. First is the sheer knowledge of what works and what doesn’t: Short beard on some men, longer beard on others, and the right amount of grooming that looks neither sloppy nor unnaturally neat. There is also a handful of physical things you need: Some combs or brushes, a tiny pair of scissors for the oddly specific touches, different oils or balms based on the length of beard and your own comfortable preference, and a set of electric clippers for the bulk of the work.

I have had the same set of clippers for a long time, a few years now. They are a bit of an upgrade from the standard, multicolored, plug-in set that’s effective and economic for average household use. When I bought my current set I decided, for how much I use it, to get the nicer version. Mine is a wireless, chargeable, sleek stainless steel pair of clippers with a black handle and trimmings. It wasn’t too much more expensive, but it made a much bigger difference for me. At least I think so.

The other day, I was trying to do the right thing, and perform some light maintenance by cleaning my clippers. I always clean it after use, but this time, I decided to get deep. I took a screwdriver, loosened the head of the clippers, and removed the whole blade mechanism. It was functioning fine, but I know how much hair and stuff can accumulate in the inner workings, so I decided to get ahead of it before there was any issue or slowdown.

The blade came out quick, and each piece of it came apart rather easily. I brushed out the loose hairs that got trapped in there, and even unscrewed another couple bits of this inner mechanism, so that I could be sure every crevice was cleaned out well.

As you may have guessed from the title of this little piece of writing… This is where I fucked up.

I put everything back together, piece by piece, just the way that I think I took it apart. I think. Everything looks good. I think. Then, I flick it back on to make sure it works… Then, I hear grinding… A loud, rough, irksome grinding sound that I can’t pretend isn’t there. Something is wrong. I have made a mistake.

I look closely at the blade, and it’s moving pretty wildly. I have no doubt that if I tried to use this thing, my beard would be uneven and my face would be sliced up like Sweeney Todd. No spoilers if you haven’t seen it, but that’s not a good thing.

I pick my screwdriver back up, and I take it all apart again. I’m thinking that maybe there’s a step I did wrong. No big deal. There was definitely a step I did wrong, but I didn’t quite get it yet. Like the definition of insanity, I put everything back together just how I already did it, and expected a different result. Just as before, it’s grinding. Almost worse this time, or maybe just more stressful because I’m getting further from the solution.

I take out the handy dandy Google machine in my pocket to see what the solution might be. I think we’ve all been here at one point, finding ourselves in a bit of a bind in the middle of a stressful task. For all the badness that has come from constant internet access everywhere we go, we also have the ability to not only look up exactly what we might need, but we also have the altruism of countless people, fixers of fucked up things, who willingly step up with step by step instructions to clean up the mess we’ve stepped into. You’ll find many of them think to make a video when the problem occurs, or go so far as to demonstrate the problem even if they aren’t encountering it organically. It’s a wonderful example of what the internet can do for community, when used properly.

Despite the best efforts of these buddies, I was having a hard time sifting through the guidance to find this particular set of clippers. There were many videos of the old models – the economic, plug-in, works just fine model. There almost none of them fit the new, evidently more complicated model I have told you about. It made me realize that, very few mechanics can fix a Lamborghini, but most any can fix a Toyota. When you’re broken on the side of the road, which would you rather be driving?

No, my clippers are not the Lamborghini of clippers. I think they were $35 instead of $25. My point stands. Leave me alone.

I searched on and on, eventually finding a blog specifically for people who need to fix something broken. I don’t see my clippers on here, but I see a pair close enough. And my problem revealed itself as harder to find, but common enough that I wasn’t alone.

Now, the clippers have two blades: A smooth and safe outside blade, and a much sharper and more mobile inner blade, more like a razor, which I might have cut myself on. Maybe. I don’t know. I can’t confirm, I wasn’t there.

Attached to the mechanism of these two blades was this little clip, which I saw and ignored. It kind of looked like the famous Under Armor logo, with the U and the A looped up around each other. It also kind of looked like those angel-wing paper clips you might see sometimes. This little clip that I saw and ignored turned out to be crucial to the clippers’ function.

During my maintenance mayhem, the little clip popped out of the place it was supposed to be. You see, the clip’s purpose was to attach the safe outer blade to the unsafe inner blade, so that when you turned on the buzzer, they would stay nice and close against one another. Otherwise, the unsafe blade would be flying all over the place inside, which is what caused that loud and stressful sound. It also created the possibility for that Sweeney Todd shave. When the clip is properly fastened, the unsafe inner blade only moves within the small range that it’s supposed to, and the only thing getting cut is the hair, as intended.

Bending the clip around where it needed to go was a very annoying maneuver, to say the least. It had to hold the two blades together tightly, which meant that, when it was out on its own, it was bent the complete opposite way. I ended up using the handle of a teaspoon to lift it back while trying to slide both blades in where they needed to be. The first few times, something slipped, and it all fell apart. Attempts and attempts later, it all finally fit together as needed. I then put the rest of the pieces together where they needed to be, clicked a few parts into place, then screwed a few others back together tightly. The rest of this process was as easy as the first few reassemblies, which made me nervous.

All that was left was to test my work.

I push the flick the clippers on and, with a laugh of relief, they sounded as good as new. Smooth, with a gentle buzz. Upon a closer observation of the blades, they were lined up exactly straight with one another, most satisfyingly. This was a job well done. 

I won’t lie to you, I almost gave up and bought myself new clippers. After all, they aren’t too expensive, even for a slightly upgraded model. Maybe I had gotten all of my use out of it, and it was time to replace them. But what kind of attitude is that? Tossing out something that’s otherwise perfectly good because it’s a little bit of a challenge to fix it? No. That’s a bad answer.

As a last resort, sure. You gave it a good college try, so spend the little bit of money on another razor that you’ll get another few years of use out of. But if I chose that this time, that would have been pure laziness and complacency.

This whole operation was unreasonably hard for me to do. I am not a handy person. Both my parents are, both my grandpas were, my brother is, and my sisters have their moments, I think. It’s in my blood, I should be handy, but I’m not handy. It takes me a lot longer to assemble something than it should, I often have to redo simple steps, and I have to ask for help more often than I prefer. This makes it easy for me, sometimes, to just not do something like this. I’m sure a lot of us are this way. Or at least I hope I’m not alone.

With the help of strangers, and easy to follow instructions at our fingertips, anyone can fix anything, within reason. It is easier now than it ever was to fix little things like these clippers. Which is hard for us to see when it’s even easier than ever to just buy something online. And, it’s as easy as it’s ever been to throw something in the trash.

So, sure, it’s a little more time and a little more effort to roll up your sleeves and fix the thing yourself. It is still easier than it’s ever been to do so, leaving us with fewer excuses to not at least try.

Beyond the ease and the cost savings… It is satisfying. I am smiling to myself, so stupidly, over the good feeling of fixing this thing of mine. It’s not something I felt too particularly sentimental about before, but now I do. Now it’s something I’ve fixed, not only something I use when I need to. I’ve given it as much fixing, as much grooming, if you will, as it’s given me. 

There is an unspeakable little pride in this kind of problem solving. Of seeking out the solution, testing it out, and seeing that it works again, just as it’s supposed to. I did that. I made this thing work. And now it’s going to work for a heck of a lot longer, because of me and my two hands. That’s pretty cool.

I think this is a good lesson for a lot of parts of life. A lot of other things we can fix, or a lot of ways we can be better, more caring people. I’ll let you put together those lessons for yourself. For now, I’m just happy that I fixed these clippers. I encourage you, either now or the next time something is broken, to see what you can do to make it better. You might be surprised how easy it is, or how much you can do with your own two hands, and a little bit of help. 

It is a fantastic feeling to fix what’s fucked up. So search for the answer, get what you need, and get to work. I promise you, you’ll smile when you’ve fixed it.