Once upon a time, every kid was a tinkerer. We learned by unscrewing things, prying them open, poking around inside. Radios, bikes, door hinges, cassette decks — if it rattled, clicked, or hummed, we had to know why. There were no YouTube tutorials or step-by-step guides, just a screwdriver, a roll of tape, and an unreasonable amount of confidence. Half the fun was the mystery of whether it would ever work again.

Somewhere along the way, we traded that kind of exploring for slick gadgets we’re not supposed to open — sealed phones, laptops with warnings about “voiding the warranty.” Kids don’t get many chances now to see how things actually tick.

I was one of those original tinkerers, and I never outgrew it. 

As a kid, I’d take apart anything with moving parts: the alarm clock, a blender, the family toaster. My dad was a bona fide handyman, and his tool shed was a treasure cave — shelves stacked with tools of every size, jars of screws and washers, rolls of wire, scraps of wood, anything that might be useful to build, patch, fix, or restore. I’d spread every screw and spring across the table like a surgeon preparing for an operation, then put it all back together — sometimes with a leftover screw or two. If it worked, great. If not, I liked to think it was already doomed before I got my mitts on it.

One of the more memorable incidents came the day I decided to operate on a miniature, table-top grandfather clock. I couldn’t tell you who it belonged to; it just sat there on a shelf, frozen, its little brass hands stuck at some forgotten hour. Naturally, I saw it as an invitation.

I picked it up, turned it over in my hands, and decided a bit of surgery might bring it back to life. Once I opened the case, I discovered an entire universe inside — gears, springs, levers, all crammed together in precise little rows. There were so many pieces. Undaunted, I examined each one, set them neatly on the table, and then, with the confidence only a ten-year-old can muster, put everything back where I thought it belonged.

When I finished, there were no leftover parts — a personal best.

Success!

The only hitch was that I couldn’t find the key to wind it. Improvisation was my specialty, though, so I used a screwdriver to give the spring a few careful turns. To my delight, the clock began to tick. I was positively beaming.

That’s when I noticed the hands moving… backward. Counter-clockwise. I was pretty sure that wasn’t how time was supposed to work. But what could I do? I gave the clock a quick polish, set it back on the shelf as if nothing had happened, and went outside to play.

No one ever mentioned it, and to this day I have no idea what became of that rebellious little clock. Part of me likes to think it’s still out there, running in reverse, keeping perfect backwards time.

Over time, tinkering turned into fixing. All those hours of “practice” taught me the fine art of la chicanada — Mexican engineering. A coat hanger could stand in for a throttle cable, duct tape might double as a structural beam, and a dab of crazy glue could perform miracles that would make NASA jealous.

My first feat of at-home engineering happened the day I “borrowed” my mom’s car for a joyride. I was fifteen, flying down the street in a ’77 Mercury Cougar, windows down, wind in my hair — pure outlaw freedom. That lasted right up until a sharp, fast turn made the engine sputter and die, smoke curling out from under the hood. 

PANIC.

I wrestled the Cougar to the curb on what little momentum it had left (no power steering is cruel on skinny teenage arms), then popped the hood to assess the damage. The battery had tipped sideways, and the positive terminal had welded itself to the body, frying the ground cable beyond recognition.

I was only a couple of blocks from home, so I slammed the hood, leaned into the bumper, and pushed — inch by sweaty inch — all the way to the driveway. Once there, I raided the tool shed for wrenches, pulled the battery, and hooked it to the charger. I remembered a stash of cables my dad kept for “someday,” found one close enough to the dead ground strap, and cut it to length. Terminals, though — I needed new ones.

I grabbed a five-dollar bill from my dresser, hopped on my bike, and raced to the auto-parts store. Fifteen minutes and $2.49 later, I was back, installing my very first custom ground cable. I tightened the bolts, re-seated the battery, and climbed behind the wheel.

Moment of truth: I turned the key and… vrooooom. The Cougar roared back to life. Victory was mine — and, just as important, no one ever had to know how close I’d come to ending both car and driver that afternoon.

My dad never seemed the wiser (or maybe he noticed and chose not to say a word). Years later, at one of our trademark carne asadas, I finally confessed. He just smiled, nodded, and took a slow sip of his beer — the kind of look that said, I knew all along, but you needed the lesson more than the scolding.

These days, I tinker simply because it makes me happy. Old cameras, stubborn lawnmowers, the occasional wobbly chair — all fair game. With Google and AI at my fingertips, I could probably talk myself through minor surgery… though I’m smart enough to leave my own insides alone.

Still, every time I coax some cranky appliance back to life, I feel like that kid again — part detective, part magician, and entirely certain that whatever I’m “fixing” wasn’t really broken until I started helping.

Enjoy this one? You might just be one of us. There’s more waiting at https://xinkblotz.com —stories and reflections that feel like remembering something you forgot you knew.