Two hours ago my daughter told me there was a leak in the garage ceiling and I went in search of the source of the leak. Took about two minutes to determine it was coming from the powder room bathroom and that the toilet inside had mutinied.
I turned off the water in the bathroom, grabbed some rags and a mop to dry the floor and then ran back to the garage to confirm that I had shut down Niagara Falls.
While I waded through the flood I pretended I was Indiana Jones being chased by angry natives shooting poison darts at me and then collapsed upon the couch and wondered about the timing of this incident.
People talk about timing and suggest there are moments when they are better prepared to deal with bad things but if you ask me there is never a good time to deal with a toilet that has declared war upon your home and a leak in your ceiling.
Moseyed back upstairs to do some more work and stumbled across more posts about Robin Williams and it made me wonder if famous people worry about plumbing issues or if someone else handles those concerns for them.
It made me wonder what I would do if I were famous. Would I handle fixing the toilet? Would I take the car to the shop or paint the house? Would fame mean I had the financial resources to hire someone to take care of those things and if I did, would I be willing to do so.
While I mulled it over it got me thinking about other things, like dealing with paparazzi and fans. I don’t think I’d like being followed around or asked for autographs.
Of course if I was famous because I had sought it out it might be different.
What Is The Price Of Fame?
I remember sitting in my office in Texas and being asked if I had ever seen the Hollywood sign. I told the person who asked that I had seen it many times but I didn’t tell them that when I think of the Hollywood freeway I think of traffic.
If you ask me about driving down the 101 towards downtown I start wondering if I really need to go that direction because unless I am working downtown, heading to a game or doing something that can’t be done elsewhere I am probably not going to sit in traffic.
Don’t get me wrong, I was born and raised in the City Of Angels and I can switch into commuter mode with ease. I am not someone who can’t deal with traffic because I can. Spent more than a few years dealing with it but that doesn’t mean that I will if I don’t have to.
In large part it is because I prefer not to spend my free time staring out the window of my car at the guy shaving or the woman putting on makeup.
By the way Angelenos, if you move out of the city you’ll find lots of people look cross eyed at you when you add “the” to the number of the freeway you are mentioning. It is not something that happens across the board but I have noticed it in many places, especially back east.
Of course they can’t drive worth a damn out there but that is a separate issue.
Anyhoo, while I was lost in thought about the 101 I started thinking again about whether being famous would mean putting someone else in charge of that drive in traffic and then I thought about how I usually prefer to drive myself to wherever I am going.
And it got me thinking about all the things I like to do as well as those I don’t and I thought about how even thought I don’t always want to run errands I like being able to do it. I like being able to go where I want without being concerned about the aforementioned fans and paparazzi.
But I admit that there was a part of me that thought it might be kind of nice to have an assistant I could call upon if I wanted to.
Your Time Is Worth Something
That is because our time is worth something. There are moments where you are busy living life and you don’t have time to deal with a busted up toilet and leak in your ceiling.
There are times where you don’t want to be the one who has to take care of fixing the problem because you have better things to do.
Except if you are like me you want to fix that crap. You want to be able to do it all yourself because it feels good to work with your hands and there is a certain sense of satisfaction in doing so.
If you ask me if I am saying I want to be famous so that I can have an assistant take care of these things I’ll say no. I don’t want the attention. I don’t want people getting into my business and making comments about things they know nothing about. I want to be able to go where I want and just be another Joe.
But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t want to enjoy more affluence than I do now because I do. And if I had enough cash you would find me taking all sorts of different classes because there is so much to learn and some of those classes would be things you might learn at a Home Depot or Lowes.
I am not bad with my hands and I can do a lot of different things, but I am not as proficient as I would like to be so it might be nice to spend time learning how to be better at fixing some of those plumbing issues or doing other odds and ends.
Or maybe you’d find me sitting in the back of a classroom again at some university, except this time around I wouldn’t be heckling the professor and talking to girls.
The more I think about it, the more I see a need to increase my net worth. If only I had time to think of a great idea for a business or invention…
Interesting thoughts. I have been thinking more about it lately as well, especially due to the death of Robin Williams. If famous, I might hire someone to help me with the toilet, or maybe, I’d try to do it myself just because most of the time life in Hollywood would be exactly the opposite and the insident with the toilet would remind me that I’m really just an ordinary man. Not sure.
It’s hard to imagine how life would be if famous or rich.
Hi Jens,
A deeper bank account would certainly make an impact on our lives. I do like the idea of doing things on my own, but when I think about it there are projects I hire people to do because I have decided my time is better spent elsewhere.