The right thing and the easy thing are never the same.
Ain't that the truth?
Thing is, taking the easy way out will often backfire. Laziness, procrastination, whatever you want to call it ... sometimes it comes back to bite you square on the butt.
And I don't know about you, but very few things annoy me quite as much as putting things off for later only for it to come back and cost me later.
How laziness can be expensive, in two case studies:
Example A: The oil leak
Our car boot has been home to a spear (as in spearfishing) for awhile - it's just been kicking around in there since a mate left it there.
Then we bought some oil for the car, since it's about due for a service. Left that in the boot too, until a few days later when T went to retrieve it ...
Cue oil leak. The dang spear pierced the bottom of the oil bottle and about 80% of the contents leaked, seeping into the boot carpeting and down into the spare tyre alcove (at least the cap didn't come off, a gushing flood would have been SO much worse).
To add insult to injury, we have a protective rubber liner that usually lives on the boot floor but had been putting off putting it back in after taking it out for a cleaning ages ago. If that had been in place, it would have been much tidier and made cleaning up a cinch.
The damage: about $50 in oil and the subsequent cleanup.Example B: The water leak
We took out part of a wall over the holidays, as part of the kitchen project. We did get an absolute steal on the labour because we know the guys, but they are legit building professionals.
Afterward, they apparently swept a bunch of the detritus straight through the hole in the floor, under the house. I learned this too late, and was wringing my hands about it ("what about the dogs?! You KNOW they like to wander underneath the house sometimes, and they could get hurt!")
Alas, what was done was done.
And then a few days later I suspected a leak. Sure enough, we have a tiny little rubber water hose running below the house - it connects the main tap to our fridge (our new fridge has a cold water dispenser built in) and in their willy nilly dumping of crap through the floor instead of disposing of it properly, must have punctured the hose.
The damage: TBC. I'm hoping it won't have majorly impacted our water bill, given how small the hose is and the size of the hole/leak. And I doubt that amount of water will have done much damage to the house itself. But I'm still majorly annoyed about it .
(The fix: I faced my claustrophobia and crawled under the house to snip the hose off before the leak and cap it there to stop the flow. It SUCKED but at least now I know I can handle it, dirt and all. I still, however, refuse to try to get up into the roof ... that involves putting a chair in our tiny hall closet and then squeezing through an even smaller hole to reach the roof space.)
Laziness costs money, guys.
