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"FacebookPinterest\n\nlast week a man came to my home, unpacked his tools and materials, and proceeded to patch the ceiling in my daughters' bathroom. Three or four hours later he emerged, packed up his tools and materials, put away the plastic sealing he'd thoughtfully assembled for the occasion, and handwrote a bill that he left on the kitchen counter. When he was finished, the ceiling was smooth and evenly painted, and the corners were crisp and precise. Sweet. I know my wife was satisfied. I heard her talking about it the following day with our babysitter. It was the laughter that first caught my attention, and when I approached the repaired bathroom, I heard our sitter's gleeful patois. \"Oh Lord,\" she was saying. \"Praise Jesus, Mark didn't try to fix it. The whole ceiling be coming down by now!\"\n\nI'm used to a certain amount of humiliation, but in this case the sting of the insult didn't start with the jokes; it began the moment a contractor was called to help. Whenever another man enters your home carrying power tools, part of your masculinity shrivels up and dies. It just does. My wife is never happier than when she gets my blessing to call someone to perform some task that I could reasonably be expected to do myself. She usually gives me the chance to concede defeat\u2014\"Yeah,\" I tell her, \"we should probably have someone take a look at that\"\u2014while quietly praying that I don't attempt to do it myself. I guess saving face is something I gave up a long time ago.\n\nIt's a shame, too, because I kind of seem like a guy who can get things done around the house. My wife must have been fooled when we first met. Looking back on it now, I think she assumed that because I was kind of unrefined and underpaid, I was also handy. Hers was kind of an optimistic, lovesick process of elimination: Not rich, not polished, not Jewish. I'll bet he's handy! That was a long time ago, but I think she still feels a little had. But he's a Gentile! I thought they were all good at this stuff. Well, she thought wrong.\n\n There used to be two kinds of men in the world: guys who could wire their own family rooms and guys who made enough money to have their family rooms wired for them. I've come to the conclusion that I represent a third\u2014the man who can do neither. Now, this wouldn't bother some guys, but it bothers me. I'm kind of a unique combination of oppositional forces: part Emersonian mule, part effete urbanite; an unholy hybrid marked by a deep-seated need to do things for myself and a remarkable inability to actually do them. I won't overstate my incompetence for comedic effect. I can hammer nails and drill holes, and I usually remember to shut the power off before I attempt something electrical. But in my hands, even the simplest tasks go awry. Screws strip, boards split, brackets bend, hinges sag, swing arms invariably swing in the wrong direction. One recent Saturday, I fid a toilet, patched a hole in a windowsill, and replaced the air conditioner in our living room wall\u2014and I did it all by noon. For me, it was the domestic equivalent of pitching a no-hitter while high on acid. Only someone actually did that. (His name is Dock Ellis.) The toilet in question is broken again, the windowsill looks like it was patched by Carmen Electra at a fund-raiser for Habitat for Humanity, and I'm still waiting for the guy to install the air conditioner properly. He's supposed to come next Thursday, between the hours of 8\u00A0a.m. and whenever the fuck he gets here.\n\n And when he does finally get here, there's an excellent chance (close to absolute certainty) that I'm going to seethe quietly at his presence. My resentment may focus on his charging me $37 an hour to accomplish something a slightly more competent version of me would be able to do without any help, or on the fact that his very presence in my home shines a 500-watt halogen floodlight on my enduring helplessness.\n\n Helplessness. Is there any notion less manly? Even the most pampered guy would have to admit a certain vestigial shame in having become useless in his own home. It probably comes from thousands of years when whether a man was good around the house could be the difference between \"a long winter\" and \"half your family dying of consumption because Dad botched the thatch job on the hut.\" We can all feel traces of that same survival instinct course through our veins every time we smell fresh-cut two-by-fours or see a True Value sign. And regardless of how equitable our relationships with women have become, that instinct runs the other way, too. There may be no greater aphrodisiac than, say, building a walk-in closet. Have you ever once seen a porn movie\u2014or even a Lifetime movie\u2014in which the contractor's wife gets it on with the yuppie client?\n\n It doesn't matter to me that I can cook and clean and contribute to raising the kids in ways that would make my grandfather hurl into his Craftsman socket-wrench set. Because I want to be handy. It's a key part of the equitable exchange of goods, services, and affections we trade with the people we love, live, and have sex with. After all, I never have to write thank-you notes or buy the Q-tips, conditioner, and moisturizer that seem to magically replenish themselves in my bathroom. With the exception of breast-feeding and coaching preteen daughters through the mysteries of menstruation, few tasks remain more gender-specific than home repair. In much the same way that women will derive deep satisfaction from making sure your children are fed and bathed and tucked safely in bed and protected from the aforementioned consumption, I'd feel more like I was upholding my part of the bargain if I could passably install the air conditioner myself.\n\n That's part of why being at the mercy of another man (or woman) to keep the home running smoothly sucks. I like the idea of competent guys, even if I don't always like the guys themselves. I've been both disdainful and envious of them\u2014disdainful because they clearly lack an appreciation of the sympathetic layabouts that tend to make life amusing, and envious because I'm not more like them.\n\n I like Bill Coleman, though. Bill's a friend who's also a professional carpenter and has on more than a few occasions entered my home carrying power tools to do work I'm incapable of doing myself. Maybe I like him because he is too polite, or too prudent, to express any of the satisfaction I'm sure he gets from taking our money to satisfy my wife's domestic wishes. And for his part, Bill likes that I never pretend that the only reason I called him was that I was too busy with a real job. \"A lot of guys,\" he tells me, \"try to act like they could have done the work themselves if only they could get the time off from work. Nothing pisses off a contractor more than that.\"\n\n Bill also (again: politeness?) believes the only reason people like me can't do what he can is because we lack the practice and training. \"Sure,\" he says, \"we all have a desire to do this stuff, because we see it as our role. But no one is born knowing how to do it. You gotta learn it.\" After all, a plumber gets to fix drains day after day after day, while you have only one drain to fix, and you don't want to risk bursting your pipes on your virgin attempt.\n\n I have decided to take Bill at his word. I am using this space to pledge to get competent, or more so, at least. It will, of course, require a three-step process, the first of which begins with an admission (don't all first steps?). Here's mine: You know the guy who can build a deck, fix a dryer, and hang a fifty-four-inch flat-screen TV? That's a guy I'll never be. And I'm okay with that. Step two is to change my attitude, to shrug off the torrent of ill will that boils up every time I walk into a hardware store; the doubt; and most destructive of all, the reckless optimism that everything will work out fine despite the shoddy planning and the iffy measurements. Step three is to come to terms with the men who enter my house with their menacing power tools and awesome utility belts. It's time to see them as teachers instead of threats, and to milk from them every cubic centimeter of their expertise.\n\n And that's where Bill comes in. He will be my teacher. We decide to start with a basic principle: He'll help me find a few things I could reasonably expect to accomplish myself and also tell me what a man of my skill set should avoid at all cost. We will come up with a plan. I like to call it the Urban Pansy's Guide to Home Improvement.\n\n\n\n The Fundamentals\n\nknow your hardware guy:\n\n Establish a good relationship with your local\u2014that's right, local\u2014hardware store. A guy who works there will have the knowledge and patience to talk you through your options, and he'll be easy to find when you come back three hours later. Try that at the Home Depot.\n\nDon't show up Empty-Handed:\n\n Bring measurements, diagrams, the hardware you're trying to replace, and anything else that might be useful. And buy more than you need of anything that might break, strip, or roll behind the fridge.\n\nbeware of wiring:\n\n Electricity is one of the murkiest corners of home improvement, because you never know who last rewired your place: It could have been done by a licensed electrician, or it could have been done by Uncle Ned. If you decide it's best to call an electrician, put him to work. He's going to charge you a couple of hundred bucks just to show up, so have him replace a dodgy outlet or install a ceiling fan while he's at it.\n\nremember that no one was born with it:\n\n Keep in mind that the guy you hire to retile your kitchen has probably been doing tiling for two decades, and he probably screwed up the first five jobs he worked on. Be patient with yourself. You might be fixing things around your house for the next fifty years, so what if it takes you two tries to hang those curtain rods?\n\nOptimism Is Your Enemy:\n\n Plan on spending twice the time and making twice as many trips to the hardware store as you think you're going to. And when unforeseen problems arise, as they inevitably will, don't panic. Take a moment to think through a solution; you might just figure it out.\n\npractice humility:\n\n If you've read this far, it's probably safe to assume you're not ever going to build your own roof deck or renovate your kitchen. But that doesn't mean you can't find a few redemptive tasks to perform around the house. The box at left will help you decide what's in your skill set. And if you end up embarking on something you just can't handle, call your older brother. He's the handy one.\n\nmark healy is gq's director of editorial projects."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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