Renominoes. In the end, a house call to help deal with a bathroom sink with a nail clipper jammed in it led to six weeks’ work and a bill in the teens with three zeros.

I used to blame advertisers for that restlessness and dissatisfaction, but I don’t think that’s right. We were already restless; we always have been. The advertisers just figured out how to nurture, tend, exacerbate, and capitalize on the pre-existing condition, that innate restlessness, promising that something new is going to set all to rights.

If you ignore the little things long enough, something as small as a nail clipper can make for two days of demolition and a trailer filled with an old sink, outdated vanity, faded linoleum, some lath and plaster, old plumbing, a thirsty old toilet, and so on. I can haul those few thousand pounds of junk to the landfill and rebuild your bathroom. But in the end, when it’s all put back together again, what you have will still be the spot to do the same basic grooming and human-waste disposal. Pay attention and mind the details and you save yourself a lot of hassle and money.