I’ve Still Never Changed a Tire
And you know what, that’s just fine!
Have you ever felt practically useless? (Raises hand.) I don’t mean practically as in all-but-entirely; I mean practically as in related-to-the-quote-unquote real world. I mean have you ever felt unequal to the task of safely navigating, much less repairing or improving, your built environment. I mean do you believe motors are powered by witchcraft, or might as well be. I mean is it clear to you that the location of so-called studs in the so-called walls of your so-called dwelling are frankly none of your business.
If you answered yes to any of these questions — and I mean, look, there was a five- to seven-year period when every comedy had at least one scene in which someone failed to properly assemble IKEA furniture, to humorous effect; if our failings rose to the level of cliché, we likely number in the dozens and may well be entitled to compensation — A.J.’s essay below, about not being especially “handy,” is for you. And hey, if you didn’t: Good for you I guess, I’m not bitter at all, the essay is funny as hell and I still recommend reading! Feel free to leave any information about the studs in my walls in the comments.
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The Art of Being Useless
Versions of essay originally ran on July 7, 2020, on The Small Bow, and on August 25, 2020, in “Human Parts,” on Medium.
I’ve always admired handy people: people who can build things or weld things or do under-the-hood things. I’m not a handy person and most would say that I’m downright useless when it comes to completing even the simplest of home repairs.
I think it’s in my genes. My mother used to say my father had “feet for hands” and told tales about how he almost set the house on fire while changing a fuse. Because of this, he was always outsourcing projects elsewhere — minor plumbing issues, lawn mowing, driveway repaving, oil changes. I made a mental note and swore that I’d break the chain in the same way a scrappy teen born into a legacy of high school dropouts would vow to be the first to graduate college. I will be the first Daulerio to change a tire without slicing open my hand.
It never happened. I’ve still never changed a tire; neither have I mowed a lawn. It once took me six hours to put together a Little Tikes Cottage for my children and I couldn’t get the roof to lay flush. Is that what you say — lay flush?
I am my father’s son.
*****
I live in a house. It’s technically my wife’s house — she’ll refer to it as “our house,” but I will not, because of this other deep-seated financial shame I carry with me. Thanks to a lifetime worth of erratic, debt-filled financial decisions, spotty employment, and a couple of years of financial purgatory thanks to the Hogan lawsuit, I won’t ever be able to purchase a house for us until late next century. And then I’ll be dead so it won’t matter anyway.
I do try to contribute elsewhere, wherever I can, where I won’t break anything. I unload the dishwasher and change baby diapers and throw some laundry in the dryer and take out the trash. I’ve also managed to turn the downstairs office into an arboretum, thanks to my obsessive (and expensive) house plant collection.
But these are chores any 10-year-old could do. When there is real work to be done — some curtain rods to be hung, holes to be drilled, anchors to be fitted, or shower-heads to be replaced — we have to call our regular handyman, Quincy.
I love Quincy; he’s basically family because he’s here so much. When he first started coming around I’d hover over him and feign knowledge about the job he was doing. He’d placate my sad inquisitiveness with some head nods before gently cutting me off.
“Well, I’ve got to do a kitchen remodel across town later this afternoon so lemme spackle up these extra-wide holes you made in the hallway here and get goin’ . . .”
I always hoped the parts or tools he needed to do these jobs were extremely specialized, shipped in from an exotic Scandinavian warehouse only a licensed professional like him would have access to, only it was always Home Depot.
At the very least, I wish I could assemble our children’s toys without fear of maiming them. Two Christmas Eves ago I tried to put together my one-year-old son’s kitchenette set and, within seconds of him lightly touching it the next morning, one of the cabinets came off and the oven door fell on the dog.
I’ve spent many late nights desperately Googling “Handyman Camps” to see if there was a place for people like me to go learn some basic skills, like when to use a socket wrench and what is a socket wrench, exactly?
But with the advent of YouTube, there’s an endless catalog of fixer-up channels where most beginners can find step-by-step visual instructions on how to replace drywall or snake a tub drain. I can’t follow what they’re doing for more than a few minutes before I’m off to The Sill, buying more plants. I had to find a way to contribute more to her house and make it feel more like our house.
*****
Julieanne always talked about what she wanted to do to the kitchen — replace the cabinets, redo the floors, etc. — knowing that if she said this in front of me, it was about as useful as saying it in front of our toddlers. I understood that she actually didn’t want my feedback or help in this matter. She just tried to make me feel included.
The one thing I heard that was possibly directed at me was, “We need a new dishwasher.” I said I’d take care of it. She said “Sure!” in the most lovingly faithless way possible.
So when I had a little disposable income a few months ago, I knew exactly how I’d spend it. I texted Quincy and told him we were in the market for a new dishwasher.
“Okay, I’ll talk to Julieanne . . .”
“No, no, no, Quincy — I am going to buy us a new dishwasher.”
He asked what kind I wanted, and within seconds I texted him back. “Just gimme the best!”
The next day he delivered us the Bosch 100 series 24-inch stainless steel model with top controls, an Easy Glide Rack System, FlexSpace Tines, and EnergyStar control. It was the Cadillac of dishwashers. Or maybe it was the Ford Escort?
I wouldn’t know!
He and his apprentice installed it in two hours while I was upstairs dicking around on my phone. When I finally came down and saw it plugged in and connected to the waterline, I was bursting with foolish (unearned) pride. After the maiden cycle finished I opened the Bosch’s stainless steel door and admired the sparkling plates and glassware like it was a kimberlite full of diamonds.
When Julieanne finally got home from work and I unveiled it to her she was . . .less than pleased.
Apparently top controls and stainless steel were terrible choices. And it didn’t come with a decent drying function. And it was ugly. She said “ugly” in such a way that I felt insulted for both myself and the dishwasher. I pushed back. “It’s a Bosch 100! Top of the line!”
Mostly, I was confused. I didn’t know there were specifications. There were, but she just didn’t believe I’d follow through with the dishwasher purchase.
I went back to my natural, resting state of uselessness in one well-intended overstep.
*****
For the next several weeks I began to get angry, though, because I’d recognize a familiar gasp and heavy sigh every time she’d try to preempt the Bosch 100’s cycle to remove a few baby bottles. She’d open the door and get hot-blasted by a sauna-level outpouring of steam. It was like the dishwasher knew she hated it.
Every time she used it she would complain about it, and this only reinforced my fear of uselessness. How can I ever be an adequate contributor to this family if I can’t even buy a damn dishwasher?
*****
One day I asked Quincy if I could be an unpaid apprentice, just to learn a few basic things for myself and also so he didn’t have to rush over to our house every time I assembled a shoe rack backward.
He answered in a serious, gentle tone: “Listen, if I taught you how to do what I do, I wouldn’t have a job.”
He sensed my disappointment.
“Hey, look at it this way: You wouldn’t call me up to write an article — I would call you.”
I nodded forlornly and let him get back to work.
*****
After the dishwasher debacle, I wanted to make it up to Julieanne and once again try to prove my worthiness. The opportunity came sooner than I expected. We had some major clogging problems with our upstairs toilet and we needed a new one.
(In fact, I had my most woeful force majeure moment after one gruesome incident: Julieanne, in a rush to shower before work and seven months pregnant at the time, was wrapped in a towel, deftly maneuvering a plunger to dislodge some hell-sent obstruction that was in jeopardy of causing a major flood. I pretended I didn’t know what was happening and ran downstairs, gagging.)
I eventually texted Quincy and said I wanted to buy a new toilet because our upstairs one wasn’t flushing properly. Actually, I wrote “Julieanne clogged the toilet again and it broke,” because I was still a little sore about the whole dishwasher thing.
The next day he came back with the Kohler K-series Highline Pressure Lite, built to handle, uh, more. He also installed a new elongated slow-close seat, free of charge.
Unlike the dishwasher, which is stealthily quiet, the toilet is wall-shakingly loud. After a flush, it sounds like a military jet has taken off from inside our bathroom. We can’t flush it late at night because it wakes the children but, hey, no more clogs, right?
Amazingly, the noise didn’t bother her that much. She appeared to maybe even actually like the toilet. Or at least she was impressed by how quickly I decided to solve a problem, even if it was one I most likely caused.
*****
Did you ever see that Bradley Cooper movie Limitless? The one where he takes special pills that instantly give him like a 200 I.Q. and he possesses super, hypnotic empathy, plus he’s able to finish writing a novel in a day and game the stock market and run really fast?
I would like a less-intense version of that pill. Just the kind that will help me finish reading a book in under a week or properly fold a fitted sheet. Or it would be really cool to be able to use one of those levelers with the radioactive-looking green goop inside it to hang pictures. I always wanted to learn how to use one of those.
Do you know what else would be a great skill to acquire? I want to whistle real loud with my thumb and pinky in my mouth. The kind of whistle that could hail a taxi or move cattle across an arid dust-swept plain.
Or maybe I could finally learn how to use that socket wrench, or just learn how to use something, anything at all, while there is still time.
MORE FEAR:
Where the Fear Comes From
My oldest son is in this odd, slightly unnerving phase where he’s become acutely aware of death. I wrongly assumed that he would be like most five-year-olds and either be terrified or, at the very least, sorrowful when he found out that all of us would perish, but he’s neither of those.
The Year in Fear
Since I do an annual gratitude list each year (2024, one drops next week), I figured I’d also do a “Year in Fear” as well. I’ve compiled all the fears from the Sunday newsletter journals all last year. There were many body horror-related entries—groaning about aging muscles and losing teeth, which tracks perfectly with my overall body image problems.
*****
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Friday: 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET and 4 p.m. PT/7 p.m. ET
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Sunday: (Mental Health and Sobriety Support Group.) 1:00 p.m PT/4 p.m. ET
*****
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A POEM ON THE WAY OUT:
My Fancy
by Alexander Posey
*****
Why do trees along the river
Lean so far out o’er the tide?
Very wise men tell me why, but
I am never satisfied;
And so I keep my fancy still,
That trees lean out to save
The drowning from the clutches of
The cold, remorseless wave.
—via Poets.org
I wish I could help you learn basic household tool use -- you could totally do stuff. My husband and I felt helpless but gradually learned, so now one or the other of us will have a minor handy-triumph. He just fixed a stuck exterior doorknob. I replaced the dishwasher's handle-lock assembly after the springy part broke off. Oh and I leveled the fridge so that it would quit buzzing! Phew.
Oh yeah, useless. Surely my HVAC system is an exception to the need for new filters.