Anyone else crap at DIY?

[UnquietDad]

I am. I hate it. Can't be doing with all that screwdriver and glue and carpentry stuff, no matter how manly it is meant to be. Woodwork and metalwork were my most hated subjects at school after PE. It didn't help that the metalwork teacher once called me an "idiot" for putting the wrong end of something in a vice. He was a twat.

Luckily, my much-valued FIL is just a natural handyman. He can take a look at something and say "oh, it's your worn flange-wheels, just needs a new sprocket. Get me your widget-tipper." And when I say I haven't got one, he looks at me as if I'd said we hadn't got a kettle, or a fridge.

Eventually he will take pity on us and do it himself. He has been known to drive to B&Q to buy the required item because we didn't have a left-angled chrome-tipped Bacharach & David rectifier for re-calibrating a linear vector gauge (I may not have remembered the exact wording, but you get the idea).

In our first house he once advised us to "fetch off that beading" and I nodded sagely; when they had gone I had to ask DW what beading was and how exactly one "fetched" it off.

[aDad]

god i am awful

It's frustrating because small things that are pretty easy for most 'proper men' just end up not getting done.

I too have a FIL (well, Dp's stepdad) who barely sits still when he comes to see us, as he's normally fixing something that he noticed needed doing last time he was up, and has brought the appropriate tool with him. I have to lurk behind him pretending that if it happens again I will be able to sort it out, knowing full well I won't!

[MerryMarigold]

wish i had a FIL like that. my dh is awful. but today he changed a very manky, old light fitting and it was a cause for much celebration in our house!

[aDad]

your dh has my full respect MM!

[MerryMarigold]

i'll tell him! he needs all the encouragement he can get...

[mrnice]

could someone please tell me what a screwdriver is??
is it some kind of new fangled sex toy my wife and i havent discovered!!!!

[motherinferior]

I trust you'll feel for poor Mr Inferior, whose FIL is my dad, a man who doesn't know the first bloody thing about DIY.