My first experience using tools in my home, for anything more than hanging a picture, was when I changed the locks on my front door. My ex walked out on a Wednesday and by Sunday he’d sent me the name of his lawyer and what he’d learned about mediation and getting out of our marriage as quickly and cheaply as possible. I was tightening the last screw on my new deadbolt when he pulled in the driveway to collect his things.

I think about that moment every time I lock my door. The memory is both haunting and empowering. The lock still wobbles a little – like a kid’s first project in shop class – but it works.

Among the many half-finished projects he left me with, was a lemon of a dishwasher that he installed, thus voiding the warranty. Connecting that thing to the garbage disposal was my first major home repair project – a wonderful lesson in why plumbers are so highly paid. I have scars on my knuckles from navigating the too-small-space between the pipes and struggling to loosen or tighten things that needed more upper body strength than I had.

Today, I reattached plastic tubing that was clogged and keeping the dishwasher from draining. But before you begin praising my plumbing prowess, let me share the secret of my success: You gotta know when to hold ’em and know when to chuck that tubing onto the back porch and walk away for a week.

It turns out hard-boiled egg is virtually impossible to expel from a long plastic tube. The hardware store didn’t have a tool long enough to reach the blockage, nor did it have a replacement tube to fit my lemon’s make and model. After hours of trial and error, the rotten egg smell wore me down and I threw the clogged tube onto our back porch and slammed the door shut, resigned to wash dishes by hand until I figured out what to do.

Fast-forward to today. The replacement tube I ordered online didn’t come with the attachments/nubbins needed to secure it on either end, so I went to the back porch to see if I could take the nubbins off the old one. Well, you know what happens to hard boiled egg that sits in 90+ degree weather for a week? It dries up! I ran some hot water through that sucker, a little Draino for good measure, and voila! All clear.

I made my boys work alongside me throughout this ordeal. I call it Life 101 – any opportunity to teach them a practical skill or underscore the importance of attempting a repair before we replace something. My intent was to model tenacity or patience or any of the other qualities a good parent passes on to her children. But I think the lesson they learned this week was sometimes you just need to walk away from a problem. Maybe it’ll dry up and resolve itself while you’re gone.