The Global Threat of DIY

Yes, there's yet another danger out there, one that threatens everyone of us, particularly married men. I speak, of course, of the sirens' lure of DIY, otherwise known as "Do It Yourself".

DIY sounds so seductive; save money, show the little woman in your life how much of a man you are by DOING IT YOURSELF! No plumbers with sagging jeans showing you parts of their rearward anatomy that you could easily have done without and will now never forget; no "handymen" promising to do the job for something only slightly less than the GDP of some small 3rd-world country. You yourself can do it, says the sultry voice sotto voce, and afterwards you will bask in the glow of the admiration of your spouse, your children, your extended family and those neighbors who called in some lamebrain to complete a project that you could easily handle if you weren't busy saving the world (or working at your day job).

Well, I'm here to tell you that, unless you are that rare being who actually CAN do it yourself, save yourself time, money, sore muscles and the scorn of all who know you by letting someone who knows what they are doing, who do it for a living, do what you foolishly thought you could do on your own. You'll keep your sanity and possibly your health--though your wallet will suffer somewhat.

I know of what I speak. A couple of years ago I managed to fall off a ladder in my backyard doing something to my roof and managed to bruise both my body and my pschye, barely setting foot on a ladder since. When we had some cherry trees taken out a while back, I asked the tree service to cut the trunks into "manageable" sections for me to split and saw for firewood later; they are still sitting in my back yard, mocking me even as we speak.

This weekend I spent trying to put together a media cart for my daughter. It looked reasonable enough and I fell prey to the sirens' voice again; Sure, you can save yourself the $50.00 it would cost to have someone else put it together, but YOU ARE A MAN! YOU have been given hands and have bought TOOLS over the years! Put them to good use!

Oh yes, I have finally prevailed, but at what cost? I've got a headache, my back hurts and I hope I haven't put something together that'll fall apart at the first bit of stress put upon it (like a DVD in a DVD player, for example). I thought I had learned my lesson from this last couple of weeks where we paid out good money to have professionals install our flooring and new toilets and marveled at the good job they did and how we didn't have to spend weeks or possibly months trying to duplicate what they did in less than a fortnight. But NOOOOOO, I had to save a little money, so I also now have a bookcase to put together (which I lead Mrs. Blue to think would be done by the time she got back tonight from an out of town funeral, but it ain't happening), which will have to be done over the next week or so.

Learn, oh foolish ones, from my example.