完形填空

So great is our passion for doing things for ourselves, 【B1】 ________we are becoming increasingly less dependent on specialized labor. No one can plead ignorance of a subject any longer, for these are countless do-it-yourself publications. 【B2】 ________the right tools and materials, newly-weds gaily embark on the task of decorating their own homes. Men, particularly, spend hours of their leisure time installing their own fireplaces, laying out their own gardens; building garages and making furniture. Some really keen enthusiasts 【B3】 ________build their own computers. Shops cater【B4】 ________the do-it-yourself craze not only by running special advisory services for novices, but by offering consumers bits and pieces which they can assemble at home. Such things provide an excellent outlet for pent up creative energy, but unfortunately not all of us are 【B5】 ________handymen.

Some wives 【B6】 ________believe that their husbands are infinitely resourceful and can fix anything. Even men who can 【B7】 ________drive a nail in straight are supposed to be born electricians, carpenters, plumbers and mechanics. When lights fuse, furniture gets rickety, pipes get clogged, or vacuum cleaners 【B8】 ________to operate, some woman assume that their husbands will somehow put things right. The worst thing about the do-it-yourself game is 【B9】 ________sometimes even men live under the delusion that they can do anything, even when they have repeatedly been proved 【B10】 ________. It is a question of pride as much as anything else.

Last spring my wife suggested that I call in a man to look at our lawn mower. It had broken down the previous summer, and 【B11】 ________I promised to repair it, I had never got round to it. I would not hear of the suggestion and said that I would fix it 【B12】 ________. One Saturday afternoon, I hauled the machine into the garden and had a close look at it. 【B13】 ________ I could see, it needed only a minor adjustment: a turn of a screw here, a little tightening up there, a drop of oil and it would be as good as new. Inevitably the repair job was not quite so simple. The mower firmly refused to mow,【B14】 ________I decided to dismantle it. The garden was soon littered with chunks of metal 【B15】 ________had once made up a lawn mower. But I was extremely pleased with myself. I had traced the cause of the trouble. One of links in the chain that drives the wheels 【B16】 ________. After 【B17】 ________a new chain I was faced with the insurmountable task of putting the confusing jigsaw puzzle together again. I was not 【B18】 ________to find that the machine still refused to work after I had reassembled it, for the simple reason 【B19】 ________I was left with several curiously shaped bits of metal which did not seem to fit anywhere. I gave up in despair. The weeks passed and the grass grew. When my wife nagged me to do something about it, I told her that either I would have to buy a new mower 【B20】 ________let the grass grow. Needless to say our house is now surrounded by a jungle. Buried somewhere in deep grass, there is a rusting lawn mower which I have promised to repair one day.