By All Means Use the Right Tool for the Job

Born and raised in an all-male, all-military household, I apparently am missing a few inherently female characteristics. I am missing the shoe gene, the shopping gene, the nagging gene and the how-to-ask-directions gene. These were replaced by the mechanical aptitude gene, the fishing gene, the love of reptiles gene and the hardware store gene. Thank God.

Ahhhh, hardware stores. There’s nothing like’em. Two words: power tools.

Most women cringe at the idea of going to a hardware store, though I’ve noticed an increasing number of ladies in places that call themselves ‘home improvement centers’ instead. They could spend all day in Lechter’s ooo-ing and aww-ing over a million kitchen gadgets that might be usable once every other year or so, but then take a sudden intense interest in cleaning grout when the husband asks them if they’d like to accompany him to the hardware store.

The greatest thing of all about hardware stores is the selection of tools. You will find tools for jobs you didn’t even know needed to be done. If you had used a piece of chewing gum, a wire coat hanger and a butterknife to complete some evil task last week, you will invariably discover that there was a tool designed to do just that. Only easier.

During a recent major automobile brake repair project, I pulled into the parking lot of a parts store. A huge sign in the window read ‘We Loan Tools!’ (Automotive parts stores are second only to hardware stores when it comes to really cool stuff you never knew you needed.) Beneath that banner was a list of some of the tools they would loan. It was a pretty run-of-the-mill list until I got to ‘steering wheel puller.’

I’d never heard of a steering wheel puller. Somebody really ought to have told me.

I turned to my husband: “Have you ever heard of a steering wheel puller?”

“Of course,” he said. “How do you think you remove a steering wheel?

“I could have really used one in 1983,” I said, annoyed, as if he were part of a conspiracy to keep me from doing a job as painlessly as possible.

“Why?” he asked.

A better question is, ‘Why do men take their lives into their hands by even asking?’ I had purchased a car that had had the ignition switch replaced. When the previous owner installed the switch and replaced the steering wheel, they reinstalled it so the insignia was pointing toward the driver’s door. It drove me nuts. I kept thinking I needed a front end alignment.

So one day, sitting in my father’s driveway and waiting for what seemed to be forever (for reasons I no longer remember due to the trauma-induced amnesia), I was bored to tears and decided to fix it. I pried the cap off the center, found the correct wrench to remove the nut and started pulling. To no avail. I couldn’t believe how solidly that thing was set on the post.

I yanked and yanked and yanked and suddenly, it was loose. Well, for a split second. Then it was embedded in my forehead.

If you’ve never been knocked out, I’m here to tell you things don’t necessarily go black. Everything went white and there were some sparkly white things floating around in my head. Or maybe they were tweeting birds or something. In any event, at some point in the future, I awakened to find the steering wheel in my lap, my hands gently curved around the rim at 10 and 2 o’clock, as if I had been driving in my sleep. An incredibly pronounced welt was visibly enlarging itself on my forehead. I put the wheel back on right side up and replaced the nut and the cap. I had a HUGE...HEAD...ACHE.

“Do you remember a time in the early 80s when I wore bangs for, I don’t know, nine months, when I had never done so before?” I asked my husband.

“Well, yeah, but it was the 80s,” he replied.

He had me there.

“Well,” I replied, exasperated, “it was to conceal the ‘Toyota’ symbol stamped across my forehead.”

Next time before I get out my chewing gum and butter knife, I am determined to find out if the right tool for the job already exists. It would be much less painful.

Reprinted courtesy Eagle Newspapers, Syracuse, New York.