Today's MOZEN: Open Your Mind

Words and photo by F LoBuono

It should have been easy enough. We just had a new storm door installed. It's an adjustable with 3 panels: 2 of glass and one screen. It is designed so that the panels slide over one another without having to take any of them out. In our case, the screen was placed at the bottom of the door. Although an option, I believe leaving the screen at the bottom invites disaster, especially if you own any critters - it provides little resistance to a cat's claws or a dog's paws. So, I set about the simple task of switching panels so that the screen would now be at the top.

Simple, right?

Well, it should have been.

I've done it before - place the glass on one track at the top and place the screen behind it so that when you slide the glass down, the screen is exposed. Well, for some reason, the way the door was assembled it would simply not allow me to do that. The carpenter who installed the door set it up so that the glass would remain at the top. It would have to be restructured, No problem - I'm handy. I began the process.

I removed all three panels and began to reinstall them properly: glass at the top and bottom with the screen also at the top in a separate track allowing for the top glass to be slid down behind the screen. Of course, I didn't need the printed directions - I KNEW how to do it.

Well, after about 15 minutes, I started to get frustrated. No matter which way I turned the panels, they just wouldn't fit properly. When I did finally get them to fit, they wouldn't move. I simply could not slide them. It got to the point where I was afraid that if I continued, I just might break the whole friggin' door! So, now I'm stuck with a door frame and no windows or screen! I couldn't leave it like that. Then, I remembered the carpenter told me that he would leave the installation instructions behind, just in case, and put them in a cabinet near the rear door. I found them just where he said that he had left them.

It seems that I tried EVERY combination but the RIGHT one. I simply ASSUMED that they would be placed a certain way and kept going back to the same conclusion: they just HAD to fit this way. Well, once I looked at the directions it became clear to me - one of the glass panels had to placed upside down relative to the other. Once I did, everything fit together perfectly with the screen on top AND the glass sliding smoothly over it, up and down.

The moral of the story is don't lock in with your thinking - even when you're sure that you know ALL about it. Even when you believe you've checked every angle, if you don't keep your mind completely open, you just might be missing one - the right one.