This. This. This!
Here's a transcript of what the woman says:
"One of the greatest luxuries in life is being married to the handy guy. Not 'yacht or private jet' rich. I'm talking about a level of wealth that is way more realistic. The dryer starts making a weird noise, and your husband goes, 'Let me take a look at it.' That is wealth.
"Because you know what I do when something breaks? I immediately start calculating how much money it's gonna cost to fix it. My husband hears a strange noise and he gets excited. Excited like the appliance just challenged him to a dual. That man will spend $47 on parts, watch one YouTube video from a guy named Rick in Iowa, disappear into the garage for three hours, and somehow save us $1200. It's unbelievable.
"And handy husbands don't just fix things. They know things. Things that no normal person should know. This man knows the inner workings of every appliance, vehicle, outlet, pipe hinge, and mysterious thing in our house. The best part is the confidence, because I have never seen a handy husband look at a problem and think, 'Hmmm, maybe I should hire a professional.' No. He IS the professional.
"So marry the handy guy, because one day your house is gonna make a noise; and instead of panic, you'll hear the most comforting words a woman could hear: 'I know what's wrong.'"
Amen!!!! Preach it, sister!!!!
Unfortunately my handy husband has passed away. I am having to learn how to be handy now.
ReplyDeleteSweetie pie, I am sorry. Buuuuuut you can do it. I am the biggest idiot on planet earth when it comes to mechanical aptitude--I think it's because I'm autistic--but even I have learned how to fix things through many many MANY Youtube videos. Listen, if I can do it (I am the person who danced around the house when I managed to drill through tile to install a shower rod), literally anyone can. Just go to Youtube and search. Good luck, honey.
DeleteYou need to find a copy of, "Readers Digest New Complete Do-It-Yourself Manual", it helps when there is a problem.
Delete(wince) I'm so sorry. May he rest in peace.
ReplyDelete- Patrice
Thank you so much for passing along this woman’s story - my brother is that guy and i texted some of it to him. He needs to hear it.
ReplyDeleteHe had a stroke in June and initially lost a lot of function on left side. He’s left-handed as well.
We thank God that his leg function and his speech and swallowing have come back, and he continues to improve every day. But his left arm and hand are only a little bit functional and they keep him from good sleep, among other things.
As it happens, his wife had shoulder surgery a few months before his stroke, and her recovery has been slower than expected and painful. They joke that they have only two good arms between them, but at least they’re on different sides, and she has to do all the driving because he can’t work turn signals yet.
But the upshot of this too-long story is that even though he still has a lot of limitations because of the bad arm and hand, he is still That Guy … and has figured out workarounds for so many things already. Such as cutting up and cleaning up tree damage from an ef-1 tornado that went through their neighborhood last month and fixing damage to their backyard fence. Figuring out how to wrangle the riding and push mowers. Improving the design/decor of an interior door that was causing a problem instead of buying new. And figuring out how to manage the simplest things over and over every day - brushing teeth, latching a car seatbelt, making a cup of coffee, getting a fresh veg out of the garden, getting something out of the fridge and opening the container, helping his wife get the sofa cushion covers off and back on after laundering them.
Anyway, the comments you posted gave me a lift, and i know they will give him a lift, too. Especially the part about some guy named rick in iowa on youtube. I laughed, and my brother will chuckle, too. My brother does that all the time, for everything home and vehicle and farm.
Thank you.
—suz in ohio
Mine is handy, well traveled, a great judge of character, handsome, and street smart, growing up in Stockton, Ca. We're in Idaho and neighbors know his strengths. It's a great life.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely!
ReplyDeleteLadies- lemme give you the inside dope:
ReplyDeleteOnce he's finished with the job, put on a little makeup and those painful high heels and click-clack over to him where he sits. Plop down on his lap and tell him what a hero he is. Even though he'll deny it, he needs to hear it.
The job he just finished, which looks perfect to you, looks slightly better than garbage to him. The miter joints on the trim have a gap because the idiots built the house crooked. The packing nut doesn't drip, but it weeps ever so slightly, because plumbing involves voodoo and water always wins. The last bolt on the last ignition coil isn't torqued to spec because the friggin engineers didn't leave enough room to get the wrench past the back corner of the intake manifold.
Hand him a cold beer and tell him how impressed you are. He needs to hear it; it's 60% of the force that'll overcome the inertia and get the ball rolling on that next project (which he knows will be just as frustrating).
So refreshing to see a woman praising their man, publicly, instead of bashing him. My husband is handy too, and he’s smart enough to know when to call in a professional. Sometimes trying to fix something can get too frustrating, or cause bodily pain, such as when fixing plumbing where you have to crawl into a space that only a toddler could reasonably fit. At that point I will encourage him to let us call in the pro. We have a standing joke when it comes to fixing things…I’ll ask him if the ape is about to come out. That’s in reference to a movie scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey, when an ape discovers how a bone can be used to beat the crap out of something.😁
ReplyDeleteThat's pretty funny! And then he throws the bone in the air and it turns into a war satellite.
DeleteI think of being handy as a gift from God through genetics. My dad and youngest son have them, I and my oldest son do not. But Youtube is a great help to me so that I can figure out whether or not to start or just call an expert.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely! I have one of these - fact, he’s fixing our dishwasher right now!
ReplyDeleteYep. I am married to a retired builder. He can fix anything. Plumbing, electrical and mechanical. And is very knowledgeable about a lot of things. Think I’ll keep him even longer than the 46 years I’ve had him around.
ReplyDelete