It would be more than appropriate to never use my name and the word ‘handyman’ together in the same sentence. Giving a guy like myself a tool set as a gift is like herding 50 bulls into a jewelry store and thinking nothing will get damaged. It’s just not a good idea.
Recently, though, I got that itch to attempt things that a normal person should be fully capable of and, not surprisingly, I failed miserably.
First, I blew out a tire on the car and figured, even though I pay for a service to come for just this situation, I should be able to manage to change it myself. In auto racing, they accomplish this task in seven seconds -- surely I could manage it in ten minutes. So, I got out all the tools: the jack, the spare, loosened the wheel nuts. Next, I cranked the car up until there was just enough clearance to get the tire off. At this point, I even started to think, hey maybe on weekends, Auto Racing might need a tire man with my obvious natural talents….
However, my luck would suddenly run out.
Ever wonder what goes through someone’s head as they see their car fall off the jack? Just ask me. It isn’t bad enough that you screw up your tire in the first place; explaining your mangled attempt to fix it to the guys who bail you out... that’s the real challenge.
First, the call to the automobile service: “Well, yes, I did blow a tire.” “So you need someone to put on a spare?” “Well, sort of…after they lift that side of the car off the grounds, they’ll have to see if the crushed metal will still accommodate a tire.”
Finally, the real defeat comes when the service guys shows up and flashes me the same look I saw on the faces of my high school teachers whenever they’d hand me back a test. You know the look: why didn’t you just ask for help?
I was going to sell the car anyway, or so I thought, so a couple hundred to fix the damage, a little embarrassment, it was all par for the course, at this point. Could have been a lot worse. So, I then spent the rest of my day cleaning the outside of the car to make sure it was sparking, when suddenly the idea came over me, why don’t I power was the engine before selling it? That way, the stuff under the hood will look as clean as the outside!
So, I headed up the street to one of those self-cleaning bays, lifted the hood, and cranked up the washer to the maximum power. Got to get this looking sharp, I though.
By the time I was finished, the engine looked brand new, and finally, a sense of pride washed over me. If I had four arms, I’d have patted myself on the back with two, while holding up a trophy with the others.
Beaming, I slid into the driver’s seat and started up the car. Hmm... For some reason, the engine now sounded a lot closer to my lawn mower than what use to be my car. Except, my lawn mower doesn’t groan to a stop, like my car just did. The check engine light flashed on. The car wouldn’t start. And I suddenly felt that same sinking feeling I had before…
When the automobile service arrived, I experienced what had to be the worst déjà vu of all time: it was the same guy from the tire incident. Upon hearing of my idea, he simply shook his head, and $1,000 later, after replacing the wiring, I’d managed to short out, he concluded by asking me, “Who told you to power wash your engine?”
The last straw in my attempts to become a handyman came last week when I decided to tune up my wife’s bicycle, which hadn’t been used for awhile.
I insisted that the bike didn’t need an expensive trip to the bike shop, that I’d be perfectly able to pump up the tires, oil the chain, and get it running like new again, all by myself.
To make a long story short, the wheels have plenty of air now. Just can’t seem to get them back on the bike.
While I’m pretty disappointed in my skills as a handyman, the bright side is I’ll never have to spend my weekends helping friends repair things, and no one will ever ask me to borrow tools I don’t have. So, it’s turning out to be a good thing. Last weekend, I suggested I might rent a chainsaw to cut some branches down in the backyard. Luckily for me, my wife insisted she’d find somebody else to take care of it.
I think I’m going to like not being a handyman...
