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It is written somewhere that men are natural repairmen. We are born knowing how to change sparkplugs, replace silcock valves, and rewire small office buildings. We are the kings of fix-it-yourself; titans of the tool shed; sultans of self-help.

The writer obviously didn’t have me in mind. I have the mechanical smarts of goat cheese.

You wouldn’t know it from looking in my garage. I have all the requisite hand tools, each neatly hung on the obligatory pegboard. I possess the standard repertoire of power tools (drill, jigsaw, circular saw, palm sander, and even a Dremel tool). A vise and a mitre box sit at the edge of the workbench, waiting with what seems like eager anticipation for a piece of wood to chew on. Saws, hammers (three of them), chisels, tape measures, snips, screwdrivers – they’re all there. I even have a band saw and a drill press sitting on their own dedicated workstand.

It’s all sham, I tell you. The tool that gets used most around here is the hammer, and that’s only to pound apart frozen hamburger patties before I slap them in the microwave. The set of chisels has never been removed from the blister packaging. Two of the largest screwdrivers keep my garage door wedged shut. Even the band saw, a dream tool for most guys, is only used once a year to slice my son’s Pinewood Derby car.

Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating just a bit. I can do some basic stuff. In fact, every tool in my collection was purchased for a one-shot job (fix this cabinet, stop that leaking faucet, make a greasy mess in the center of the floor putting together the kiddo’s Christmas presents, etc). These tools end up sitting idle after the deed is done, wondering why I don’t pick them up for another adventure, almost like a puppy that can’t understand why the kids won’t play ball anymore.

Except perhaps for the wood plane. It once helped me make a bookshelf that would only stand if placed in a corner. The plane now spends most of its time hiding from the other tools, muttering to itself.

So why do I do this? Here I am, an admitted moron mechanic, and yet I collect tools like I was one of the three Pep Boys. I’ll give the standard, non-explanatory excuse: it’s a Guy Thing.

The urge to “take care of it myself” is an overriding force in any man’s life. There’s a wild, uncontrollable part of us that cannot wait to wade in, arms akimbo with crescent wrenches and ratchet screwdrivers, ready to twist and torque until the ills of the world are defeated. I’m quite sure this desire is etched deeply in our genetic makeup. It probably goes all the way back to the caveman who, when asked by the wife to go kill another saber-tooth because the last set of incisors had dulled, invented the first primitive pencil sharpener.

The ability to repair something with your own two hands is the ultimate stand against entropy. It’s a statement to the universe that says, “Go ahead! Break it! Smash it! Not only will I fix it, but I’ll make it better. And it will make Julienne fries, too.” Unfortunately, living up to this archetype requires actual knowledge about fixing things. The best thing I can do is wave a brand new tool in the general direction of the busted object and hope that I frighten it into repairing itself.

Oh, I put on a good enough show. Nothing will make a man go through his tool-time paces like female observation, and since I’m married, I’m always under observation. I must also pass Important Knowledge to my twelve-year-old son, lest he grow up to become Nathan Lane. So when the car stops running or starts making that “ka-chunk” noise, I dutifully pop the hood and stare at all the parts like I know what I’m doing.

I look at the obvious parts, like the engine. And the belt-thingies. And the bottle where you put that blue washer stuff in. Then I start looking at items whose names I know, but whose purposes are shrouded in mystery, like the distributor cap. And the spark-plug sucker thingies. And the spinning blade thing that comes on when you sneeze. And the bottle that holds the green stuff that Russians like to drink. Then I stare at objects whose jobs would be unknown to me even if I had their resumes in my hands. Like the smog pump (or is that the air conditioner compressor?) Or the carburetor, which actually might be the battery. Or that grill thing in front used to kill insects.

Then I start poking and wiggling. It’s a requirement that any car repair attempt must cover your fingers in that black greasy stuff that comes off only with the aid of 100-grit sandpaper. The best way to get this grimy tattoo is to wiggle all the black things attached to the engine. Pull at a hose (but not too hard, lest you detach it, committing the cardinal sin of making things worse). If it can be safely detached and reattached, this can make for good drama and further the illusion that “I know what I’m doing, woman!” For example, a really good effect is to pull one of the sucker-thingies off a spark plug, look inside and make a thoughtful “hmm” noise, then pop it back on.

The “hmm” noises are important, but don’t just stick with “hmm.” You’ll want to mix things up a bit with “ah” and “I see” and “I thought so” lest the female observer begin to wonder if you’re diagnosing a breakdown or trying to remember the main chorus of Birdland. Once you’ve done all this poking and prodding, stand up, wipe your grimy hands on your shirt (spreading around evidence of manly interaction with things mechanical) and say, “Well, it can’t be serviced here. We’d better have it towed in.”

You understand that this could have been said right at the beginning, saving about ten minutes and a future date with a bar of pumice soap. But it’s not the masculine thing to do. It’s like the whole “asking for directions” mystique - real men always try to do it themselves first. Or at least fake it.

And if you’re in the presence of a real mechanic? If there’s one thing that’s worse than looking like a doofus in front of the wife and child, it’s looking like a doofus in front of another guy.

Being a poser in front of a professional takes some subtlety. Begin by realizing you’re on his turf. He’s going to recognize your ignorance if you point to the alternator and call it a windshield wiper. However, it’s acceptable to let the fellow know you’re not completely helpless. Explain what you’ve done to diagnose the problem: “Well, I checked all the spark plugs, and the belts all looked okay, and there aren’t any leaks around the oil filter, and the magic motion dust isn’t foaming around the matter-antimatter converter.” In short, give him the impression that, given the time, you would have eventually fixed it yourself. Indeed, you would have gone into the woods and fashioned the tools by hand out of vines and tree bark, only that your wife was really in a hurry to get home.

This morning, I woke up (i.e., the dog woke me up) at 4:00 am to the sound of running water in the bathroom. After a quick shuffle down the hall, which is my best speed at any time prior to sunrise, what to my wondering eyes should appear but the image of water spewing from above and below the sink faucet.

I immediately went into “man mode” and started poking and prodding. I was looking for something obvious, like one of those polished-steel pipes with a red LED countdown meter like you see in all the James Bond films. After ruling out a terrorist attack on the water line, I proceeded to twist the knob on and off, as if I could fix it by simply convincing the knob to “work better.” Despite the fact that the wife was sounds asleep in bed, I still instinctively made lots of “hmm” and “that’s interesting” noises. And then I sat back and said, “Well, it can’t be serviced here. We’d better have it towed in.”

And then I remembered that, somewhere in the garage, I had a Delta faucet repair kit. It was left over from an attempted (and failed) repair from several years ago. During that previous incident, I got my money’s worth out of the $70 plumbing bill by watching said plumber take apart the faucet. It was during this session that I learned about the mysteries of the “valve seat” and the tendencies of rubber gaskets to disintegrate in time for the plumber to make his sailboat payment.

I went to the garage (still shuffling) and grabbed the repair kit, hoping that the gaskets had seen fit to remain in one piece during their long hibernation. I gathered up all the wrenches, screwdrivers, and pliers I could get my hands on, raising clouds of dust that rivaled Mount St. Helens. After cutting off the water supply (a lesson learned from many nights of watching bad situation comedies) I approached the faucet and fell to with a vengeance that would have woken up the Maytag repair guy.

About 20 water-soaked minutes later, I stepped back in amazement. I had fixed the faucet. The leaks, above and below, were no more. This thing wouldn’t ever be dripping again even if you gave it a cold.

I won’t say that I dislocated my shoulder patting myself on the back, but I felt pretty good about this. It seems that nine years of living in a house older than me has paid off. Through repeated attempts, expensive failures, and costly lessons at the hands of professional contractors, I have somehow started to learn how things bloody well work. Either that, or I’ve seen enough episodes of Mythbusters that I’ve learned to fake it very well.

My only regret from this little incident, aside from the lost sleep, is that the woman and child slept through the entire exciting affair. They even slept through the bit where I biblically cursed the valve stem. When I later informed my still-groggy wife that I had singlehandedly kept our house from being washed out to the Gulf of Mexico, her only comment was that I had made “quite a mess” in the bathroom. Oh, well — she’s not exactly a morning person, and I’m sure when she realizes I preserved her one and only chance to have a hot shower, she’ll thank me with suitable amounts of fawning and chest-rubbing (mine, not hers).

I’m just a little worried that I may have given my toolset some false hopes. They’re probably in shock that, for once in their lives, I didn’t fling them across the room in frustration. I hope they’re not too disappointed if I don’t immediately go out and build an extra room off the back of the house.

The plane, of course, is still not speaking with me.