I am not handy

Hog On Ice laments his lack of handyman skills. I can empathize, but while his family was largely tool-ignorant, I grew up in a house where some of my dad's skills should have rubbed off on me but didn't. It's not that I didn't have exposure to it either; when I was growing up, my father did some substantial work on our house and I was usually around to help out. We gutted the bathroom, installed a new bathtub and shower, re-tiled the walls. I only have vague recollections of how I helped (measuring, cutting tiles, etc). For whatever reason, although I was deeply immersed in these activities, none of it stuck with me. Not a lick.

The funny thing is, I knew at the time that I would never be handy. I recall discussing it with one of my high school classmates at the time. We both agreed that we just assumed we'd go to college and make enough money to pay someone else to do what we were incapable of doing. Yes, I know...the line forms to the right, ladies.

They say this kind of skill skips a generation, but that's not true in my family. My brother is extremely crafty, even moreso than my dad. He works for a tool company, for chrissake. A couple of months ago, he was cutting some wood on a table saw. Aforementioned wood decided to fly off the blade, nearly severing two of his fingertips. He went to the hospital, had them surgically reattached and two hours later was home eating dinner. I think I'd still be in ICU.

Recently I found that my toilet was leaking (from the tank to the bowl), which caused it to auto-flush every 5-10 minutes. I replaced the flapper. It didn't work. I'm all out of ideas. Now I turn the water on when I need to use the toilet and then turn it off immediately thereafter. I have really bad luck with toilets.

My set of tools consists of a cordless screwdriver, some assorted other screwdrivers and some wrenches. Oh, and a hammer. I have a hacksaw, too, but I only bought that last summer when I tried to assemble my deck furniture, put the legs of the table on backwards and then had to hack through the screw because I couldn't untighten it. I turned a one-hour assembly job into a sweaty four-hour nightmare that required two trips to the hardware store.

My brother worked with his church group one night a week, fixing cars for fellow churchgoers that couldn't afford repairs. I can't change my own oil. I changed a spark plug once. I felt like an Indy pit crew member.

I've been eyeing flat-screen LCD TVs lately. I think I can afford it but frankly I'm not sure if I can deal with the inevitable humiliation that will ensue when trying to set it up.