Humiliations of Not a Handy Man

What is it like to be useless in a practical way around one's home? As a sufferer from this condition, I muse on this subject as I sit here listening to a discussion on Edmund Burke on BBC Radio 4 while hearing our hired workman extending his ladder outside my window to continue the painting of the back of the house.

I don't like ladders. I don't much like painting. Putting these two together in the great outdoors, which is lovely today but could equally be cold, wet, and windy, is something I am minded to avoid if mere money can be deployed to do so. This is the case as I write.

I was raised to be idle. There's no way around it. This was not the perfect upbringing for a middle class boy without connections but with a natural predeliction toward sedentary pursuits. Mowing the lawn was at the very cutting edge of the physical exertions that were expected of me. School, college, and then life in an office work environment taught me discipline but added not a whit to my ability to change a lightbulb, et al.

The problem is this: in Britain to be "handy" - or atleast to believe one is and act accordingly - is expected as a part of the natural order of things. As one without any proclivities of this sort, and as one who grew up in a land across the Sea where everything tangible seems to have a different name, I am left to the last bastion of defense of my status as a Man: Sports!

My devotion to sports - on TV and print, of course - over a substantial range of British and American competitions gives me entry into practically any conversation with other chaps, especially in the milieu of the Public House and, before my retirement, in the office.

But doubtless needless to say this cuts no ice in my own home where I remain a continuing disgrace in this area. My constant attempts at distraction onto the ground of the intellect - where I feel more confident and atleast know the names of things - prove of only sporadic and short term effect. But what can I do? I am and remain . . .

Not a Handy Man.