A SCREWDRIVER’S A DRINK, ISN’T IT?

“Incompetent ninny.”

That’s what Mr. Bentley used to call me. It wasn’t like he was singling me out. That’s what he called everyone in his junior high woodworking room whenever they effed up. But I effed up a lot. I was the supremely incompetent, the ultimate ninny. It was the first time in my life that I didn’t think a British accent was charming. I cowered. I stared at my shoelaces. There is absolutely no doubt that he knew the effect he was having on me. Mr. Bentley managed to cement my sense that I was impossibly, certifiably un-handy.

To this day, I shudder whenever I pull out my toolbox, something I got by default when my ex couldn’t be bothered to take all his things with him. Mostly it’s full of duct tape, painter’s tape, a dried up permanent marker and various small tools that I call “thingies”. I’ve fulfilled the expectation that I am useless.

The toolbox is out now. I set it on the kitchen counter a week ago, a place where I could not avoid seeing it. But placing it there was enough for one day. I retreated to the gym and then scrolled through my Twitter feed before finally trying to get my Netflix to work again. (The old unplug and plug in again trick worked. Whew. That’s all I’ve got in my repertoire.)

I’ve spent the rest of the week maneuvering around the toolbox while staring at the one remaining floating shelf that I couldn’t figure out how to take down—something my realtor insisted I do before my condo goes on the market next month. I could have attended to another assigned task, sanding down my bathroom walls after what turned out to be my worst ever paint job but, well, that just didn’t look like fun. I’d tried to smooth the surfaces with regular painting sandpaper spongy thingies, but the bumps remained. I bought coarser sandpaper. Still no effect.

“Incompetent ninny.”

Yeah. I hear ya.

I went for coffee. This time it wasn’t an avoidance technique; I had a strategy. It is extraordinarily difficult for me to ask for help with anything so I invited a friend and shared one woe: the floating shelves. He offered to help—his tools, his time. Bless him. He came over two days later with his own toolbox—no tape, no markers, just all real tools—and peeked under the shelf at the screws whose grooves I’d nearly destroyed from poking them unsuccessfully with wrong-sized screwdriver attachments.

“I figured it would be IKEA,” he said. “It just needs an Allen key.” He pulled out a little bendy bar and I realized I had two of them at the bottom of my own toolbox.

“Oh.” Call me stupid.

He proceeded to extract one screw and then paused before ducking under to work on the next. “Damn arthritis,” he said. And call me shameful, too. I took over and managed to get the remaining screws out, a simple five-minute task I could have and should have done all by myself if I’d had any practical sense on matters like this.

My shame was, of course, fleeting. Since he was already here, I showed him my abysmal bathroom paint job. “I’ve got a power sander I could lend you.” Notably, this time he didn’t offer to do the work. Me with a power tool? My only power tool is a Dust Buster. Two of ‘em, both busted. (Apparently, I can accumulate some mighty tough dust.) Fear rose within. Did I really need all ten fingers? He left with the offer still dangling.

I spent two more days staring at my bathroom walls, pondering. I tried the hand-sanding thing again, same (non) result. Finally, I texted. “When can I come pick up your sander?” My comfort zone was somewhere far behind me, way beyond any rear-view mirror. In the lobby of his building, he pointed to where I’d have to insert the sandpaper. He looked at my blank face and then demonstrated. Thank god, because I had a totally different idea in my head from just watching his pointing fingers. “The rough side of the sandpaper faces out, right?” He laughed but I had to ask. One person’s obvious is my helpless conundrum.

“It’s extremely noisy,” he warned me. Gosh darn, too late to do the work on a Sunday evening. I’d have to wait until the next morning. Or afternoon. Sometimes procrastination is part of one’s survival instinct. Some people delay skydiving, I put off power sanding. (Make no mistake: I ain’t ever jumping out of a plane.)

The next day, as the afternoon hours were ticking away, I finally put on some Van Halen and plugged in the power sander. I was all butched up. But, really, who was I kidding? After YouTube segued into another Van Halen song, it switched to Belinda Carlisle’s “Heaven Is a Place on Earth”. Ten songs later and I was listening to Wilson Phillips. Peter Cetera and Irene Cara were on deck. Dang YouTube knows me all to well.

To be honest, I’m not sure I did the job right. I am fairly certain I held the right side of the machine to the wall. Smooth? Dunno. It looks all scuffed up. I won’t know until I repaint next week. (Yeah, another delay. I need time for my testosterone levels to subside.) For now, there are a couple of mini victories. For one, the noisy machine silenced Mr. Bentley’s voice inside my head, taunting me again. Even more importantly I completed the job without filing down a single fingernail...or finger. And maybe now I can raise one of those digits to old Mr. B.