Tuesday 21st January

Why do we men hate them so much?  Is it because they are actually never-ending? Or is it that we are, despite female expectations, not all brilliant at DIY?

I am quite a good painter.  Wallpaper hanging I am good at too.  Sanding down wood, and filling and varnishing – I’m your man.  But hanging kitchen doors, ANYTHING electrical, ANYTHING to do with plumbing and I go to pieces.  Kitchen cupboards are my particular hate.  I know the theory, I can see how the silly hinges are supposed to work, but trying to get them lined up is rocket science to me.  I think it is because I am right left dyslexic; I cannot straightaway think which is my left and which my right hand, I have to think about it.  So too with clockwise and anti-clockwise.  I always have to think about it first before screwing or unscrewing and almost every time do it wrong.  And maybe with up and down too.  Consequently trying to work out why the cupboard doors overlap in the middle is impossible for me.

The kitchen chassis in my wife’s house too are knackered.  Too many bodgers, myself included have tried a variety of ever longer and thicker screws and the fabric of the chipboard cupboards is ruined.  She will have none of it of course.  It must be my fault.  As if the ownership of a penis automatically confers building skills.  So, I bodge and I bodge, all the time arguing that we should get a new kitchen.  All the time the repairs just make the thing look almost worse than it has ever been.  And even now I am waiting for yet another dose of plastic wood to harden and maybe give the screws some sort of purchase, knowing full well that the door will still be wonky when it goes back, and no amount of screwing in or out of the adjustment screws will make a bit of difference.

Yet does she ever ask that brilliant handyman if he has written a novel, or even a good poem, or understands Accounts, or can appreciate great Art or Literature.  No, these skills pale into insignificance when the man knows how to hang kitchen doors perfectly.