Misc. Women and diy

What really bothers me are the women who don't know how to mine and smelt their own copper ore for bronze implements.

 

I'm not very good with the car.

But I can work the chipper shredder and the table saw. I'm usually the one to fix the toilets and the shower drains.

With more feminine choices: I can pattern, cut, and sew a dress for anyone in the family, except Mike. Pants too. Curtains, halloween costumes, blouses, etc. How about you, Wolram? :)

(Ooops. Pants = trousers, not underwear.)

 

When I was growing up, there was an undeniable cultural separation when it came to car repairs. Men commonly took their sons out to the garage to help with repair and maintenance, but daughters were almost never invited to participate. Actually, girls usually had a small role in preparing and carrying out lemonade to the hot and thirsty men working on the auto. As a result, girls just didn't learn very much about basic car repair. Things are probably much different now. I hope so, anyway.

 

I'm pretty handy with most carpentry things, and have learned enough plumbing to do my own repairs there. I can handle a smidge of electrical, but usually have opted to hire someone on anything that was more complicated than replacing a light switch, mostly because of the insurance/liability issues of diy with electrical stuff. I can handle basic maintenance on my car (changing oil, changing a flat tire, checking fluids, and even can change the brake pads). However, since I only have one car, if I get partway through a job and discover I forgot something or need a tool I don't own (the brakes always seem to require a special star wrench, and it seems to be a different size for every car), I have no way to run out and get what I need, so I haven't done anything other than change a flat since I moved away from home (there's really no reason for me to change my own oil when I can drive to one of those quick change places and be done in 10-15 minutes...it would take me that long just to drive to a store and buy the oil and filter, not to mention the time it would take me to clean up the spilled oil in the driveway because I always seem to spill some somehow, fish the screw for the oil pan out of the bucket of used oil, where I always drop it, wash the oil out of my hair, clean up the fingerprints I track on all the doors of the house while getting to a sink to wash my hands, etc.) It's not so much that I can't do it as it is realizing that someone who does it dozens of times every day is going to be faster at it than I am doing it once every few months.

I'm also really good at watching someone do something once and being able to do it the next time myself. So, sometimes I've had to call in a repairman to do something the first time, but after watching them do it, I was able to do it myself the next time.

 

I'm pretty much useless when it comes to cars. I can't even drive a manuel transmission.

 

My wife was pretty self-sufficient when I met her. That is one attribute that appealed to me. I remember coming over to her apartment and found her sitting under the hood of her Fury III working on the engine.

She does a little electrical, plumbing and carpentry, but I do most of that and the mechanical work, and anything that requires strength. We both do gardening.

Tomorrow I get to replace front brake pads on my car.

 

I wasn't old enough to help my dad when he was around, but my mom dated a racecar driver for a while, and I used to help him work on cars. We took apart and removed an engine from this huge van once. It's cool when someone shows you how to do it. He always let me help fix stuff - cars, home repairs, whatever. And when our house flooded, we got to fix everything! Gong to the junkyard was fun too. And hanging out with his friends at the shop. I felt like one of the boys.

 

Oh silly, you don't need a left-handed screwdriver; you just stand backwards.
What's the worst thing you've ever had to get from a junkyard? We had to find seat belts for a back seat once. That was horrible.

 

:rofl: Poor woolie. I don't remember how we go the seatbelts out. I remember looking all day to find the right kind of car, being horribly hot and dusty, yep, broken glass and stuff everywhere, having to get into the most awkward positions, probably fighting with rusted nuts, yuck. It was usually more fun.

 

I was lucky, when I went to the junkyard to get stuff, for insurance liability reasons, they couldn't allow customers to get stuff themselves anymore, so you'd just tell them what you needed and a half hour later, they'd come back with it for you. Some stuff was easier, they would strip it off the cars as they came in and had it in a storage room. The side mirrors were like that...though also hard to find them undamaged...the car I had at the time seemed to be a target for people who didn't know how to park. :grumpy:

 

Aw, you missed one of the best things about the junkyard. You don't have to be so careful not to damage anything. You can let out some of your frustration and just rip stuff out sometimes. No need to unscrew it - just YANK! I'd probably be more worried about hurting myself now, but it was fun when I was younger.