Handyman Bulletholes

Dear Handyman Bulletholes:

I just paid $86 to have the knob on my stove screwed back on. Granted there was a slight trick to screwing it back on (which was why I couldn't do it myself) but $86? And he had to finagle to get the price that low. Geesh. is this fair?

Stoveless in Memphis

Dear Stoveless:
Back when I was doing tile that kind of thing happened all the time. I'd do some little job and I'd be supposed to charge 80 bucks, and the little old lady would pull out her checkbook.
I'd look at her and note the sparse lifestyle, the 3 crackers in a baggie next to a half cup of tea that served as her lunch, and her cat--the only thing left in the world for her-- dozing on the kitchen counter next to the Social Security check that didnt even cover the mortgage; I'd see the bottles of pills lined up next to her daily Pill Minder; and the pictures of her husband, handsome in the 1935 wedding picture and even more handsome in his navy uniform a few years later; I'd see the picture of a young man in his Vietnam era uniform, who looked a lot like her husband, and another picture of an even younger man in Marine Desert khakies, a boy really, who seemed to oddly favor  her more than the other two men, and next to his picture was an American flag folded into a triangle. 
I'd figure my mileage at 50 miles one way, the two hours on the road and the hour I'd spent at her house, and it would seem to come out to something like 100 bucks.
I'd say "Would 20 bucks be too much?" and I never made any money, because it took ten bucks to get there, and another 10 bucks to get to the next job (if there was one) and now a third of my day was gone... it was pure torture.
I cried myself to sleep every night.
Handyman Bulletholes