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Casaubon’s Book » Blog Archive » The Competence Project
I have an embarassing confession to make - I’m not handy at all, and I have absolutely no excuse for it. You see, unlike my husband, who grew up in an apartment where a super handled any fixing, I grew up with two parents who were both extremely handy. There was my Dad, who smelted his own bullets in our furnace, fixed things and taught me to handle a knife, an axe and screwdriver early on. And, just in case I should try and get away with whining that I didn’t learn because I was a girl (total nonsense, my Dad would have had no truck with that), my step-mother is an extremely talented woodworker, who I got to watch renovate our home more or less by herself through my whole adolescence. Sue is incredibly talented - I have beautiful bookcases, my sons have beautiful wooden toys and a gorgeous toy box - and whenever she comes to my house, runs about fixing everything that Eric and I are ignoring. She tried hard to pass on her skills - and it didn’t take. As a teenager, I was busy getting ready to live the life of the mind - the fact that even minds get broken toilets and funky wiring didn’t really register until after I left home.