Flashback: Why Women Need Tools

As a 20-something I moved apartments quite a few times. I was a student so I bought a lot of semi-disposable furniture from places like Ikea. This meant that every time I moved there was always a lot of assembly/re-assembly of furniture. Whenever I’d need help with this kind of thing (or another household task: putting up blinds, shelves etc) I would call whoever I was dating at the time (or another random male friend) to come and help me. Eventually I figured out why these guys were always SO eager to come over and help me put together my crappy furniture.

BECAUSE IT WOULD ALWAYS LEAD TO SEX.

This how my ex and I got together. He came over one day to help me put together my newly purchased bed frame. We ended up fooling around on the carpet of my apartment while the bed frame remained in its box, leaning against the wall. This was the first time something like this happened but not definitely not the last.

In my experience, TRIPS TO IKEA ALSO LEAD TO SEX.

He drives you out there, you buy a bunch of stuff (“Yeah I’ll totally help you put it together!”), you bring it back to your apartment and then you end up sleeping together instead.

Obviously there is some kind of link between the act of building stuff, furniture & sexual tension.

I’m not complaining about the Sex. The problem was that afterward he’d leave with a skip in his step and I’d still have an unpainted wall, a clogged drain, or furniture still in its boxes with nothing but the incomprehensible Scandinavian assembly instructions to keep me company.

(Back then, I thought that my ideal mate would be a guy who actually stuck around after he slept with me and preferably could read Swedish. This is what you call “aiming low”)

It was after one of these incidents, while I was sitting on my bedroom floor surrounded by half opened Ikea boxes, leafing through the confusing directions, shaking my fist at the sky, thinking “HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO BUILD A BOOKCASE WITH AN ALLEN KEY AND FOUR WOODEN PEGS?!!”, I said to myself:

“SCREW THIS!”

The next day I called my Mom for advice. My Mom is a home-improvement force to be reckoned with. This is a woman who re-floored our 4 story family home, by herself.

I became obsessed with D.I.Y home improvements. I conquered my fear of the Hardware Store. I bought an electric drill, hammers, nails and sandpaper. Floating shelves off of a concrete wall? NO PROBLEM! I put up shelving units, put together furniture, hung curtains, drilled, hammered and poly-filla’ed. I started to feel really empowered.

On Sundays I’d watch the Home & Garden network for inspiration. Then, I would plan out my project for the day & head out to Canadian Tire. I even became accquianted with the Sunday regulars. I lived near the Gayborhood, so mostly the people I met were Lesbian couples, but I thought “Hey! I don’t need anyone else to do these things. I can be my own Lesbian couple of ONE“. The best part: my apartment looked great and I had done it all myself.

A few months later I was on the phone talking to a guy I was seeing. We had been on a few dates. I knew he wanted to sleep with me but we hadn’t yet because I had serious reservations about him and I was more interested in his friend (ouch!). I’d just finished telling him that I’d purchased a new bedframe & mattress (bed frame #1 had finally bit the dust). You could hear the obvious excitement in his voice when he asked me “NEED HELP PUTTING IT TOGETHER?!”. I felt really vindicated when I told him,

“Don’t worry, I have it under control”

And you can too! Even if your home-handyman isn’t trying to get in your pants, buying some tools & learning how to use them is a great investment. This can be kind of an overwhelming shopping experience so, I’ve compiled a “Skinny Dip Guide” to navigating the hardware store: