I'm Your Handy Man

Being a Dad, and a home owner, means that I am forced to put things together, but let me assure you, that even though I take these tasks one day at a time, I'm no Dwayne Schneider. I have a long tradition of carpentry projects that always go askew. When I was a kid, I built soccer goals that leaned to the left or right. In shop class, I had to design and build a box, that's it, just a simple box with four sides, a bottom and a lid. It was the hardest thing I was assigned in my four years of high school. I can't draw a straight line, even with a ruler. I can't cut a straight line, even with a table saw. When they tell you to measure twice and cut once, I pretty much ignore that rule, because I like to get things done quickly and often half-assed. Example. I built this book case in college to save money, and I had to nail it to the wall to keep it from falling over. So you see, while I do like Mechanical Resonance by Tesla, I, myself, am not mechanically inclined.

I think my biggest problem is that I hate reading complicated directions, and my frustration level for these types of jobs goes from a 1 to a 10 in about thirty seconds. Putting up a ceiling fan for me is a minimum of two full-blown tantrums complete with the throwing of screw drivers , five trips back and forth to the tool box, up and down two flights of stairs, 25 utterings of 'fuck this bullshit', and a final trip to Home Depot, where I can never find anything I need without the help of some old dude, who looks like he was alive when Noah built the Ark.

This weekend I had to install a baby gate at the top of our stairs, and I was less than enthusisatic about the whole thing. The first fiasco is going to Baby's R Us to buy the gate, and because our stairwell has a bannister, I need a special kit that costs more than the gate to avoid drilling holes in my stairway post. The Baby's R Us we go to is always a welfare experience. I haggled for Dominoes in a Tijuana shop that was nicer than this place. We go in and Amy gets a carnation for Mother's day and I get a headache in the form of donking off a quick hunge for the gate and the kit. I guess it's worth it, if it keeps my kid from taking a header down the stairs, but sometimes I wish kids were like colts, and just got up and mastered the art of walking hours after birth.

We get the gate and the kit back to the house and Amy takes Maggie into another room, while I begin the daunting task of taking out the 50,000 pieces necessary to put this Rube Goldberg device together. First setback. I need a drill and a saw. I guess this gate wasn't made in China, because everything I've put together in the past five years has only needed an allen key, which might be the suckiet tool ever. I swear it's a Chinese conspiracy to make us look like complete douchebags. Hey, if my kid only makes $.05 an hour to satisfy your gluttonous consumerism, then you have to build a two story entertainment center using only a bent piece of metal. Good luck fuckers!

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Needing tools that aren't in my arsenal sets me back a day, but my father-in-law comes through. It's a rainy Sunday and I'm in full out-of-touch Dad attire; underwear, a t-shirt and black socks, because when I get stressed I sweat, when I sweat, I get frustrated, when I get frustrated, shit gets broken. I have everything laid out on the floor in front of me and I start sawing, screwing and drilling, while trying to read directions with no pictures. WTF? No pictures! Just long paragraphs of words in 4 point font. I'm convinced that Asians have slanted eyes because they write so fucking small. I finally give up, look at the finished picture on the box and decide to wing it.

If these directions were an SAT problem, my reading comprehension score would be a zero. Ok you have 30 minutes to complete this section. Take a 3/4 inch hoozle-rod and drill it into the back of piece A. Fill in the 4 nozzle hickeys with the bracket mounts, but don't tighten all the way. Attach Piece B to piece A with plated wing nuts. Then you turn the page...Attachez le morceau B au morceau A avec les ecrous-papillons plaqués...Ok these directions are now in French. Where did the English go? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? sil vous plait aidez-moi!

I get the kit part of the project done successfully, and my confidence grows. Bam, bam, bam I get the gate part of it done rather easily as well. Well smack my ass and call me Tim Taylor. It was like an out of body experience. I was throwing shit together, like an Indy 500 pit crew and it actually came out OK. There's hope for me yet. Now if you'll excuse me I have to go rotate my tires. Anyone seen my allen key?