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I like to kid my husband that we are perfect for one another: I got the only Italian who can't fix things and he got the only Jew who can't make money. But as cute as that is to us, it isn't very funny when something goes awry in our 1926 home.
Then, it is almost inevitably a matter of picking up the phone to call someone who will charge us hundreds of dollars to repair something that with a little bit of understanding and a couple of hours of sweat equity we probably could have done ourselves.
Since my husband has no instinct or inclination for tinkering, I have no one to turn to but myself. And I am not alone.
Men across the country may have received new wrench sets and electric sanders for Father's Day last Sunday, but women may be the ones using them. Female do-it-yourselfers are becoming a big part of the home repair market.
In a poll conducted for Home Depot in 2003, eight in 10 women said they planned on addressing one home project in the next year; and believe it or not more cordless drills are sold as Mother's Day presents than for Father's Day, according to the Home Improvement Research Institute.
Hey, if the day has arrived when gender does not drive presumptions about who is going to pick up that crying baby, why should it determine who is going to stop that leaky faucet? Each partner should simply be expected to work to his or her strengths.
Living that principle prompted my foray into home repairs. I started with the simple stuff, such as painting rooms and changing shower heads (does the thread seal tape get applied clockwise or counterclockwise?). But as I succeeded, my projects got more ambitious. I have hung shelves, fixed toilets and installed light fixtures.
Hardware stores are no longer intimidating places where only men who grunt like Tim Taylor may venture. Women now constitute half of all purchases at Lowe's and Home Depot, the nation's largest home improvement chains.
WD-40 is our newest perfume.
But as cocky as my triumphs made me I wasn't deluded. I knew my realm within the mechanical world was limited. So when the clothes dryer broke recently - it was getting hot but the drum wasn't turning - I thought, "okay, time to call a professional." I mean - it's a dryer! A big hulking home appliance. Letting me near it with tools would be like letting the girl that pierces ears in the mall try her hand at a pulmonary bypass.
So, I called the place where we bought the dryer six years ago to find out that, of course, it is no longer under warranty. But in the process of describing the problem, the woman at the other end said, "that sounds like a broken drum belt. Will you need me to schedule a technician to come out or will you be fixing it yourself?"
"What do you mean, "Fixing it yourself?' Is it easy to fix?"
"Oh, yes," she assured. "And we sell the belts here. They have instructions right on them."
Easy like quantum physics she meant.
The belt did come with instructions, if that's what you call a couple of tiny schematics printed on the plastic package. "Step 1," read the package, "open dryer."
That was it. No further advice as to how to achieve that feat.
I searched, truly, for any sign of a screw, bolt or nut that would allow me to lift the top. No luck. So I called the lady back. "There are two screws in the lint basket," she declared.
And so there were. (Jeesh, I would have lost Dungeons and Dragons right there.)
The next step was removing the front panel, but as luck would have it the front was attached with screws requiring a ratchet and socket to remove. Had socket, no ratchet. So I improvised using a wrench as a ratchet in a pinch. Cumbersome but effective.
As the front panel came forward so did the entire drum of the dryer, which I held in place with one hand while holding the directions with the other.
It was definitely the drum belt. The old one was lying on the bottom of the enamel frame like a dead snake.
While still holding the heavy - and getting heavier - drum in place, I tried to loop the new belt around it and then weave it through the small motor at the bottom right in accordance with the smudgy drawings. Note to the uninitiated: When a repairman comes with an assistant and you wonder if the extra labor is really necessary or just driving up the price of the repair - it's necessary.
There were two possible ways to thread the new belt through the motor and no way to discern from the directions which was accurate. I had to make a guess. It was The Lady, or the Tiger time. Choose right and I had a working dryer, choose wrong and well, a premature dryer death perhaps.
I somehow managed to get the whole thing back together and held my breath for the big test. Oh happy sound. That loud turning drum was back in business.
Now I'm eyeing the refrigerator. The icemaker has been spitting out some hollow cubes lately. I wonder how those things come apart . . .