Just do it

I'm the type of person who mulls things over. A long time. I'll come up with different solutions for some small situation, weigh the pros and cons, eliminate the ones that probably wouldn't work or are too complicated or too expensive, contemplate the remaining ideas, maybe resurrect part of one of the rejected ideas, think it all over some more, come to a tentative decision, then wait for the time to be right to execute it. I think it's my father's deliberation genes expressing themselves.

One such overthought problem was how hold the rear door open part way so that it would resist opening farther or closing because of the wind or the slope of the land. It should be quick and easy to set up and take apart. I have been thinking about it for about three years.

Forrest, on the other hand, is a man of action, a let's-do-it-now type of guy. After I changed the way my solar panel was mounted, I thought, "It would be good to trim down those uprights," which in my mind comes with the assumption, "sometime in the convenient future." But when I mentioned it in passing to Forrest he went into the shop, brought out his handheld band saw and cut the suckers. Oh. Okay.

So when I told him about the door thing he walked over to the van, looked it over as I shared some of my solutions, said, "A bungee to hold it closed and something to prop it open." Then he walked to the side of the shop, came back with a piece of two-by-four, set it on the bumper and closed the door until it stopped part way open. Oh. Okay.

"Now I just need to get a short bungee cord," I said, thinking I'd need to go to the store. At some convenient time in the future, of course.

"I probably have one in the shop."

He did.

I hooked it on the latch and a screw that was already in the door. Presto, all that mulling, over all that time, laid to rest in about five minutes. Damn.