Drill Baby, Drill!
All this talk about drilling really has me thinking about one of the items on my Bucket List:
· Learn how to use a drill to absolute perfection.
You see my Bucket List isn’t a summary of things I want to do before I die, but rather it’s a compilation of things I want and need to learn, and here’s the best part, while I am still single. Not to say marriage is akin to kicking the bucket (although quite a few of my married friends may say that it is), but there’s just some things I want to know and accomplish especially while I’m single. Learning to drill so that I can put up my own shelves, install my own cabinets and fix my own stuff is one of those things– a marker if you will– in my journey to live liberated and independently.
For years, I’ve had a myriad of men—my daddy, boyfriends, the super, a neighbor, all come over to play handyman with their drills and bits. I’ve watched, even held the screws and nails, but usually end up in the kitchen cooking some fab meal as part of my payment for said work. Totally clichéd and ladylike… yuck! Lately this scenario has grown real tired because inadvertently, I’m also at the mercy of these handymen. Waiting for them to be available, hoping they can swing uptown when I’m home, hoping they won’t want more than baked chicken and okra for compensation. It’s a pain in the you-know-what and leaves me feeling quite disempowered. So screw them and their nuts-n-bolts! Right now I have five brown boxes from IKEA that have been sitting in my apartment for six months waiting to be assembled. My tiny NYC kitchen longs for those two beautiful chrome shelves to take the burden up of all the pots, woks and pans currently strewn about haphazardly. I feel like if I can get those heavy boxes home by myself from behind God’s back in Red Hook, Brooklyn, which involves a ferry and a somewhat long subway ride home, then I can put the blasted, yet beautiful two-shelf wall console together by myself. Waiting almost half a year for someone who has yet to show-up to do an installation is akin to waiting half a lifetime for a man to appear and put a ring on it. So on Sunday I’m off to Home Depot for my drill and my lesson. Even though I’m hoping BP and our current administration will find alternative sources of energy, my personal mantra is now drill, baby, drill!
Regardless of your marital status and gender, is there anything you hope to learn or accomplish this summer? This year? If so, what & why?
Sure there’s lots of things I hope to one day learn when you put it that way! I too, need to learn how to use a drill instead of waiting/relying on my husband to tackle things around the house. I still need to learn how to change a tire by myself. I’ve always took pride in my independence but admit that marriage has made me “lazy” about things I did on my own when I was single.
I’m smiling as I read.
6 years ago I asked my husband for a drill for Xmas and it changed my life -and his. He’s not handy in that put-together-repair-things way, and was tired of my – sexist – assumption that he was…probably the nagging, too.
I’m no longer a lady in waiting, a thankful cook, or a beggar. Actually, I have to stop myself from buying/finding stuff to repair just so I can drill, screw or otherwise assemble.
This summer? I’m going to learn how to take cuttings and root the old fashioned, wonderful smelling honeysuckle around my house so that I can plant it outside my bedroom window and smell it waking up and going to sleep. When it gets big enough, I can use my drill to build it a trellis.
Years ago my uncle and I put up my hard ceiling after removing the drop ceiling. We used 5/8 sheet rock which is pretty damn heavy. He made a large Y shaped stand out of 2×4 known as a “dead man” that we used to hold up the sheet rock until one of us could drill enough screws into it to secure it in place. Once it was secure he’d say “I own it” meaning I could move the dead man. I instantly loved that expression. I must say having these skill along with knowing how lay vinyl floor tiles (about to learn how to do commercial this month!)paint,hang blinds and shades, snake a drain, set up my own electronics and put together just about anything that requires assembly has given me a quiet confidence and a sense of empowerment. Get you drill on and learn anything else that you usually have to get someone else to do and holla “I own it!” afterward. Trust me, you’ll love it!
Grrl, I own my own toolbox and it is filled with everything I need to fix anything that breaks! I love the feeling of “fixing” something or building something and being able to stand back and say, “Yep, I did that!” What makes this even better is having my children look at me and say “Momma, you can fix anything!” The secret is to just get in there and try it. Everything comes with instructions and well, I can read. Sometimes it works, othertimes, not so much. But what makes it all worth while is the look on my male friends faces when they see my new living room floor and I tell them that my sister and I put it in. Yep, just us grrls! By the way, my sister also built a deck on the back of my house. She knows tools that I know nothing about. As for something I wished to learn or accomplish this summer, there was one thing. I am an extremely overprotective mother (as we all should be in this day and age) and I have been trying to “let go” some with my eldest. I had to learn that all of those talks and discussions about responsibility and accountability were actually working. I had to allow my child to travel across the country (with my brother and his family) to see if I could handle being without her and if she could take care of herself without me. She was fine without me, but I wasn’t so sure how I would do. Well, we did it. She was fine. I, on the other hand, was a mess. I was missing my baby girl so much that I got out the drill, paintbrushes, and tools and re-did her bedroom. I did learn my lesson. I can let go a bit. And when things start to get to far out of my comfort zone, I can always get my drill. 🙂