When I was in high school, my friend Catherine and I started using the word schneid to describe anyone who was handy at fixing things. Schneider, of course, was the handyman on “One Day at a Time,” which for some reason I watched all the time. Don’t ask.

I am highly proud of my schneidness, especially my ability to bootleg solutions with very little beyond some paper clips and tape. Runny toilet? Paper clip and electrical tape. Flickering dome light in the car? Electrical tape (no paper clip needed).

But, almost two months in to our homeownership adventure, I still hadn’t really gotten to show my schneid side. Until Thanksgiving day.

I opened the cabinet under the sink to grab a garbage bag, and noticed that the cabinet floor seem sort of…wet. Really wet. Like, flooded. The cat food bag was sagging and muddy, the dishwasher detergent box was melting. Water started to drip out onto my feet.

It didn’t take long to find the problem. The pipe leading from the drain was, well, no longer connected to itself.

So I rolled up my sleeves, and started fiddling with the pipes. On Thanksgiving. Not a great plan, but, hey—I’m schneid.

It took a while to find the problem—some type of seal in the screw-on tube connector was loose—but having found it, I fixed it. That’s right. I fished out the sealing ring, experimented with different arrangements of sealing ring and screw-on connector and tube ends, and fixed it.

And even though it never came to that, believe me when I tell you that if I had needed to, I would not have hesitated to fashion all new pipe-sealing parts out of paper clips and electrical tape.

Perhaps it’s time for me to take a look at those radiators.