Handy Skills You Do and Don't Possess

Big Fins techniques also work on diaper changing as well, eventually they will all say "just get out of the way I'll do it" if you make a big enough mess. Well stated Big Fin!
 
Dang, I've got nothing to add to the list of talents provided herein. Bullshitting is probably my "default" skill when all else seems to fail.

My tools consist of a screwdriver, a channel lock, and a hammer. If it can't be fixed with those tools, it is broken beyond what I have patience to fix. Call someone.

I come from a family of very talented machinist, mechanics, and craftsmen. I completely reject that role as a husband or father, as it imposes heavily on the more important "family times" spent hunting and fishing. If God meant for me to be handy or to mow lawns, he would not have invented the Yellow Pages.

I feel completely smug when I drive to the lake or to the trailhead and see some guy mowing a lawn, repairing a roof, or some other domestic chore imposed upon him as a result of proclaiming how "handy" he is. Dumb ass. If you want to hunt and fish, you never tell anyone of your "handiness;" not your wife, your mom, your neighbor. To get enough hunting and fishing in the busy life of today's world, you need to feign complete incompetence when it comes to such things. And, that time at the lake or in camp is the real "family time" we are all seeking.

When asked to work on a "honey-do," immediately start cussing. Act like it's the end of the world. When pressed to the point that you have no choice, make a lot of noise. Cut the back of your hand on a sharp edge. Bleeds like hell and the person imposing this task on you will have to look at it every day. Break a few things. Stomp out the door stating you have to go to town to get some more parts. Use it as a trip to DQ. Make sure you buy your tools and parts at a farm and ranch store that sells ammo. Buying ammo at this time is a good way to float it under the radar and not get in too much trouble.

Come home smiling like you are now Bob Villa and ready to tackle the project. Bang around a bit, cuss a bit more, and then wrap it up in a manner that leaves a few parts still in your pocket. Bring her in for the big test run. It will not work any better than when the imposition was made on your family time (hunting/fishing time), but now you can say you tried. After a few bouts of this, such impositions will no longer be made on your "family time" and you will get to laugh at others on your way to the lake or to the trailhead.

I've been in a few serious jams where I had to employ my handiness, but I swore camera guys to secrecy. My brother has seen me work through problems in a moment of extreme mechanical need, but he knows if he tells my wife I am able to fix things, he will be on my short list.

A man should take pride in the fact that his wife is a better mechanic and carpenter than he is. It shows you have not allowed "details" too impose on your family time at the lake or in deer camp. A true family man has such priorities. Hopefully she owns more tools than you. Some women do actually like to fix things, which is why they marry men who are good at breaking things. Mostly they want you to be a good "family man," which requires a lot of "family time."

I can trap critters pretty good. Give me a sharp knife and a cutting table and I will have your fish or game into fine edible portions, in short order. My best skill has been BSing a marvelous woman that she is well served by staying married to me in spite of my many faults and few talents. By far my greatest skill of adulthood.

Alright wise guy:D,

Tell me how to learn my wife that I've forgotten all those domestic duties??? I've already showed that I can do most anything....How do I UN-show that?:D
 
Faking incompetence just to get out of it.............one of the best moments of Everybody Loves Raymond when Ray, Robert and Frank intentionally mess up the wedding invitations, and the "fake" one gets sent out instead.

http://youtu.be/c5DERppkIG0

Proceed with this strategy only if you are fully committed to it, or ready to be committed.
 
My tools consist of a screwdriver, a channel lock, and a hammer. If it can't be fixed with those tools, it is broken beyond what I have patience to fix. Call someone.

What's a channel lock?? :confused:


How's that for starters, Randy? :D;)

Unfortunately, my wife already knows that I can fix just about anything. I have to - I'm way too cheap to call someone else...My 'family time' suffers because of this.
I can also play several instruments, but don't have much time to anymore; between mowing, painting, fixing the vehicles, staining the deck...Wait, I'm starting to see your point here...:eek: It's too late for me, save yourselves!!
 
I'm not good at anything, but just barely adequate at everything. It's the worst of both worlds.

For example, I'm good enough at cutting down trees to tackle the job myself. I'm just poor enough at cutting down trees to make one fall on the north side of my house.

I'm just good enough at replacing shingles, soffit, fascia, windows, and siding to tackle a repair job myself, but just poor enough at it so that it drags out for two full weekends during prime ice fishing time. I think you can see the pattern here.....
 
Big Fin- That is pure inspiration. I fully plan on changing how I deal with my domestic duties. You, sir, are a very wise man.
I disagree, i think Big Fin is a very unwise man, doesn't his wife read this forum?:D
BTW Big Fin, you missed off WD40 and and adjustable spanner.
Cheers
Richard
 
I'm not good at anything, but just barely adequate at everything. It's the worst of both worlds.

For example, I'm good enough at cutting down trees to tackle the job myself. I'm just poor enough at cutting down trees to make one fall on the north side of my house.

I'm just good enough at replacing shingles, soffit, fascia, windows, and siding to tackle a repair job myself, but just poor enough at it so that it drags out for two full weekends during prime ice fishing time. I think you can see the pattern here.....

That's my predicament. I'm just cheap enough and just stubborn enough to try and tackle projects on my own. Most the time I'd have better off calling in backup from the get-go.
 
I'm not good at anything, but just barely adequate at everything. It's the worst of both worlds.

For example, I'm good enough at cutting down trees to tackle the job myself. I'm just poor enough at cutting down trees to make one fall on the north side of my house.

I'm just good enough at replacing shingles, soffit, fascia, windows, and siding to tackle a repair job myself, but just poor enough at it so that it drags out for two full weekends during prime ice fishing time. I think you can see the pattern here.....

Easy to identify the problem right there. I'm no Dr. Phil, but why in the hell do you even own a saw? You a lumberjack wanna be? I grew up in a logging family. I spent too many days falling trees, bumping knots, and bucking up 100" on the landing as a youngster to realize that owning chainsaws and fishing just don't follow a parallel path.

I have an eight-stitch scar on my left thigh from a Jonsereds 621. I show it to my wife as proof of how dangerous these powered tools are. My house is far more safe with 35+ long guns and 5,000 rounds of live ammo, than to have a chain saw on the premises. Hopefully, before you got too far along in the relationship, you realized the value all your past scars and broken appendages could have when negotiating out of "honey-do's." I think I've convinced my wife that chainsaws spontaneously start and you never know when its going to happen. To make sure she keeps deathly fearful of them, I inform her when any re-runs of chainsaw horror movies are on TV.

Show me a man with a chain saw and I'll show you a guy who doesn't get to fish and hunt as much as he otherwise would. And when someone starts on that old line about firewood saving on the heat bill, blah, blah, blah, I doubt he is not really serious about his "family time." Usually, by the time his wife has converted him to such quasi-religion, he is beyond help. Time to move on and find a better hunting/fishing buddy and leave him to his broken down chainsaw and his firewood pile. On your way back from elk hunting, wave to him while he stands with the wife running the log splitter, knowing if had planned ahead, he could be doing something far better on a fine September Saturday.

My brother, still a logger and log home builder, sent me one of his spare chain saws. He was concerned I might need one some day. WTH? I hid it in my shop where my wife could never see it. When my brother was last here, I gave it back to him and told him to keep it ... for good. Not sure what he was thinking, other than he is one of those handyman types who built his own house, fixes his own machinery, and always worries that I lack necessary equipment to continue to foolish family legacy of being handy. As well-intended as he is, I find it no coincidence that he has never killed an elk.

Don't even get me started on lawn mowers. If it were illegal to own lawn mowers, the divorce rate in America would drop in half, boat sales would triple, and every child in the country could tie a Pale Morning Dunn by age five. Now that would be progress my friends.

For every powertool, chainsaw, mower, power washers, or other "manly device" you have, you can expect it will reduce your "family time" by at least two days per year, per powered device. Add in the time to change oil, winterize, etc, and you quickly realize such is a terrible investment.

I think one of our Podcasts is going to be how you become "unhandy" and how you stay "unhandy." Just from the sample audience here on Hunt Talk, it looks like fertile ground for missionary work.
 
That's good stuff right there, Randy! You are spot on about the chainsaw. It is nothing but trouble.

In fact, 3 weekends ago on a beautiful sunny Saturday, with weather perfect for almost any outdoor activity, I was stuck using the same offending chainsaw to cut 62 wood slices for centerpieces for my upcoming wedding, as requested by my lovely (in case she is reading this) fiancé. Of course, once the slices were cut they needed to have a finish brushed on both sides. Before I knew it the beautiful day was over with no fish caught or shots fired. It was depressing.

Please do dedicate a podcast to spreading this sort of wisdom to us folks who don't know what we are getting ourselves into. Make it quick, too! My time is limited before the big day! I'll have plenty of time to listen to it when I'm mowing the lawn and trimming with the new weed whip I just bought :(
 
That's good stuff right there, Randy! You are spot on about the chainsaw. It is nothing but trouble.

In fact, 3 weekends ago on a beautiful sunny Saturday, with weather perfect for almost any outdoor activity, I was stuck using the same offending chainsaw to cut 62 wood slices for centerpieces for my upcoming wedding, as requested by my lovely (in case she is reading this) fiancé. Of course, once the slices were cut they needed to have a finish brushed on both sides. Before I knew it the beautiful day was over with no fish caught or shots fired. It was depressing.

Please do dedicate a podcast to spreading this sort of wisdom to us folks who don't know what we are getting ourselves into. Make it quick, too! My time is limited before the big day! I'll have plenty of time to listen to it when I'm mowing the lawn and trimming with the new weed whip I just bought :(

Oh gawd, take it back, give it away, do something to rid yourself of that scourge. Weed whackers, what anti-hunter invented that device?

I was in Home Depot buying some propane to boil a bear skull and I saw some guys looking over the new Weed Eaters being promoted. It took me fifteen minutes to educate them of the error in their thinking. The Home Depot clerks are often underemployable, so they did not pick up on how my gospel was not good for their weed whipper sales. The one young guy with the orange apron was convinced, and told the two fellas, "Hey, the guy has a hunting TV show, so he must know what he's talkin' about." They decided against partaking in such blasphemy, even with the instant rebate code. I felt really good about the missionary work of that day.

As we left, discussing many topics of marriage and wisdom born of experience, I pointed them over to the Sportsman's Warehouse across the street. Told them that all they need for good family time could be acquired right there. That a can of worms and some bobbers were a lot cheaper than a weed whacker. I handed them a set of DVDs and watched them smoke tires over to SW. I gave them Lawnboy's phone number in the event their wives still needed their grass manicured.

Weed whackers; a pestilence to human progress. God's way of reminding us to be good "family men" or on some fine June morning, while our buddies are thumping walleyes, we could be stuck on the business end of one of those whining contraptions.
 
Randy, You sure hit the nail on the head. My father in law takes pride in being a handy do-it-yourselfer. Consequently he has a yard full of broken down cars in a state of disrepair, a couple three Chainsaws, a pile of firewood rounds and has not been Elk hunting or Fishing the entire time I've been married to his daughter. And he lives in the county with the largest percentage acreage of wilderness area in the State of Idaho.
 
I would say my best skill is bullshitting my way out of things to do around the house.... that's the point behind having a 17 year old son right?
 
Converted

I revisited this website today after seeing a couple years ago. I really enjoyed the OYOH shows and checked out the website back then. I have to say, I LMAO at the BIG FIN replies on this thread and really began questioning my handyman accomplishments. WTH have a been doing, I did hire my lawn mowing out this spring so that's a good start, and that AZ elk tag I drew this year....well I'm going big time, and balls to the walls until the last hour of the hunt. I might even stay a few days after and scout for the next time I draw it- 20 years from now. Thanks BIG FIN I',m a BIG FAN!
 
In college I could pull the engine from my Nova on Friday and have it fixed and back in by Sunday. Today I need bandaids after changing spark plugs. I was brilliant to marry a women who is an entomologist and hunts and fishes. But after we got married I watch the kids when she hunts and fishes (to be fair she does the same for me). She also quickly forgot how to tie flies. Worse than being dumb enough to own a weedwhacker is being dumb enough to form your own company. Now I don't have time to hunt or fish and vacations cost thousands of dollars. Overall it is a good life though.
 
I think Fin is certainly on to something with power tools and lawn care. On those he is a visionary. But when it comes to chainsaws and cutting your own wood I feel he may be missing something.

In my house, wood cutting in September occurs on weeknights after work, and never on the weekend. Weekends are for hunting deer and elk. My wife has no idea how long it takes to cut and load a cord in the back of my truck. In reality, it is an hour and a half job.

Say I get off work at 4 and head straight for the hills. By 6 or 6:30 the work is done. But if one arrives home at 8:30 or 9:00, dirty and tired with a truck full of wood, the wife will approve and think nothing of it. Which leaves a couple hours every evening for grouse hunting. As a general rule, your chainsaw should never leave your home without its companion: your shotgun.

Or, if you really want to maximize your time. On Monday go and fell a dozen trees and buck 'em. Get enough for four or five truck loads and leave them in the woods. Then, every night for the rest of the week, you can have your truck loaded in 20 minutes, which leaves the rest of every evening for slaying grouse.

Most of the grouse I have killed have been killed on firewood evenings. I really don't know how else to hunt grouse, because when it comes to the weekends or big trips in September, I'm taking my bow over my shotgun every time.
 
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