Compensating for broken appliances becomes habitual

Several years back, my refrigerator door was slightly broken. When closing the door, it would not make a complete seal until you kicked it. We let that go for months and months, if I remember correctly, because it was still fully functional; it just required a silly extra step. This became so habitual that I started to find myself kicking ALL fridges, not just our broken one. I kicked poor, innocent fridges at work, at friends' houses, etc.

Eventually, Lacey's parents were kind enough to get it fixed for us, and eventually I stopped kicking it. But I always thought it was funny how that habit carried over into inappropriate places.

Fast-forward a few years to 2006, and this same funny behavior showed itself again. Our kitchen faucet had a minor leak, and unless you turned it off just right, it would drip-drip-drip all day long. Everyone had their own way of turning it off, but my preferred method was to turn it almost all the way to the 'off' position, but not quite. This would effectively turn the water off, and would usually prevent the dripping.

Again, we let this go for way too long, and I had a good laugh when I found myself turning the kitchen sink at work off the same way (not quite all the way to the 'off' position). Eventually, I found the manual for my kitchen faucet, and my buddy Dallin fixed it for me. I'm not a handyman, at all, so it's nice to have friends that are good at fixing stuff.