Jack Of No Trades But Master Of YouTube

I’ve never been handy.  I must have missed the assembly line in heaven where baby boys received the ability to fix things.  Every guy I know is familiar with one of the following:  

1. Changing his oil
2. Building something
3. Not die when working with electricity
4. Any household maintenance in general

But not me.  I’m familiar with Spotify and vacuuming. It’s not like I haven’t tried. I focus so hard on certain tasks that my wife sees me sticking my tongue out like Charlie Brown when I am trying to fix something.  

Not fixing things was something I could get by with when I didn’t have a family and when I didn’t own a home.  But now I’m expected to be handy.  Gosh!  If the garage door was broke, my solution was that we park in the driveway.  If the shower was leaking, we could use the other shower.  The fire alarms weren’t working?  We could sleep outside in our tent.  These solutions didn’t last very long.  

So I was forced into the world of being handy with no experience.  And I was at it alone because I had too much pride to ask for help.  I take that back.  I took my son to Home Depot once for a workshop they do on the weekends.  This way I could learn from the experts without the embarrassment of someone I know help me.  We ended up painting a bird house.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY_S66OTCEg

When a crisis arose, I headed to my garage to get my tools.  But here’s the thing,  I had 10 ratchet sets and one headlamp from the last 11 dirty Santa gift exchanges.    So if you needed bolts turned in the darkness, I was your man. And if we lost the ratchet, it was ok cause I had nine more.

I couldn’t find the other nine ratchet sets.

The only way to describe my hammer was “tiny.”  I looked like I was equipped to assemble a doll house. I didn’t have a tool belt.  I had a belt. And this was to keep my pants up.  There were a couple of times where I relied on a wire clothes hanger as a tool.   A wire clothes hanger.  There was one thing I could always fix though without fail.  I even had the right tool.  I could unclog a toilet. I was so good at it that I felt like I should be wearing a cape when duty called. 

One time, I was trying to remove broken limbs from the huge trees in my backyard.  It was dangerous cause they could fall and hurt someone.  So with a ladder, steak knife, pool noodle, and my daughters jump rope, I went into the danger zone.  When all was said and done, I ripped a hole in my shirt and almost lost a nipple.    

It was time to fight back.  I needed real tools.  I needed “man” tools.  I needed tools that you plug in and that are dangerous.  So I asked my brother-in-law if I could borrow his chainsaw.  Go big or go home is something I never say. But that was the idea when I moved from a steak knife to a chainsaw.  I had limbs all over the ground that I needed to cut into smaller pieces.  So being a complete novice, I went for it.  When using a chainsaw, never push your way through if your leg is on the other side.  I cut through the limb and onto my thigh.  I cut through my jeans, but it didn’t cut my skin. A little more pressure and I would have lost a leg.  About that time the heavens opened up and a bright light shined down on me, and God said, “take it down a notch.”  

As time went on and I had to fix more things, I knew I would need help.  I would need a mentor. And that mentor was YouTube.  Fast forward to now, and I’m a whole new man.  Now after watching a video on how to fix a garbage disposal,  I repaired it.  There was a fork sticking out of the sink with the other half lodged in the turning mechanism.  I went in with a pair of pliers, holding a drill bit and turned the inside of the disposal and the fork was free.  Now yes I used the wrong tools, but I was on a roll.  

A few weeks later our shower was leaking, and it was like the bat signal was shining in the sky.  After 17 videos and 5 trips to the hardware store, I fixed it and with the right tools.  Now I’m not building a tree house or roofing my home, but maybe next year.  Baby steps.

Every new problem that comes up can give me setbacks, like learning how to hang a flat screen.  But 7 holes and 4 non-matching screws later, it’s up.

I’ve heard that women live longer than men and now I know why.  They make us do all of the dangerous stuff.  And that’s ok, I guess.

But to all the men who have played video games your whole life and have never had your hands dirty, YouTube can help.

If you’ve never mowed your lawn, YouTube can help.

If anytime something breaks and your solution is just to buy a new one, YouTube can help.

If you’ve never changed the air filters in your house, nor were you ever going to because you didn’t know they existed, YouTube can help.

It helped me.

What is your handy horror story?