Dave Barry: The Taming Of The Screw

Several million homeowners’ problems sidestepped

Sincere statement of thanks from the author

I sincerely thank you for purchasing this do-it-yourself book, instead of one of the thousands of other, much better ones. I want to assure you that there is not a single project in this book that I would not have considered doing myself if I hadn’t been so busy writing a do-it-yourself book.

If you’re like most homeowners, you’re afraid that many repairs around your home are too difficult to tackle. So when your furnace explodes, you call in a so-called professional to fix it. The “professional” arrives in a truck with lettering on the sides and deposits two assistants whose combined IQ’s would still be a two-digit number, and they spend the better part of a week in your basement whacking objects at random with heavy wrenches, after which the “professional” returns and gives you a bill for slightly more money than it would cost you to run a successful campaign for the U.S. Senate.

And that’s why you’ve decided to start doing things yourself. You figure, “If those bozos can fix my furnace, then so can I. How difficult can it be?”

Very difficult. In fact, most home projects are impossible, which is why you should do them yourself. There is no point in paying other people to screw things up when you can easily screw them up yourself for far less money. This book can help you.

The best way to use this book is to place it on a coffee table so that your guests can place their drinks on it. Or, if you’d like to attempt a home repair project, you can look up the appropriate chapter. For example, if you want to fix a plumbing problem, you’d look up Chapter 4, “Plumbing.” Or Chapter 8, “Masonry.” It won’t make much difference.

Basically, a tool is an object that enables you to take advantage of the laws of physics and mechanics in such a way that you can seriously injure yourself. Today, people tend to take tools for granted. If you’re ever walking down the street and you notice some people who look particularly smug, the odds are that they are taking tools for granted. If I were you, I’d walk right up and smack them in the face.

We ought to be very grateful that we have tools. Millions of years ago people did not have them, and home projects were extremely difficult. For example, when a primitive person wanted to put up paneling, he had to drive the little paneling nails into the cave wall with his bare fist, so generally the paneling wound up getting spattered with primitive blood, which isn’t really all that bad when you consider how ugly paneling is to begin with.

1. With the saw off and all the power in the house off and the power lines completely detached from the house, place the piece of wood you want to cut near the saw.

2. Leave the room and have the power turned back on. (WARNING: Never attempt to turn on the power yourself! Have one of your children do it.)

3. Have the power turned back off and peek into the room, wearing industrial goggles. If you see any signs of movement from the saw, fire a few rounds at it from a small-caliber revolver, such as you might use to unclog a toilet (see Chapter 4, “Plumbing”). If you see no signs of movement, have one of your remaining children retrieve the piece of wood.

Tools for hitting things to make them loose or to tighten up or jar their many complex, sophisticated electrical parts in such a manner that theyfunction perfectly. These are your hammers, maces, bludgeons, and truncheons. Tools that, if dropped properly, can penetrate yourfoot. Awls. Tools that nobody should ever use because the potential danger is far greater than the value of any project that could possibly result. Power saws, power drills, power staplers, any kind of tool that uses any kind of power more advanced than flashlight batteries.

Go to one of those really cheap discount stores where they sell plastic furniture in colors visible from the planet Neptune and have a food section specializing in cardboard cartons full of Raisinets and malted milk balls manufactured during the Nixon administration. In either the Hardware or Housewares department, you’ll find an item imported from an obscure oriental country and described as “Nine Tools in One,” consisting of a little handle with interchangeable ends representing inscrutable oriental notions of tools that Americans might use around the home. Buy it. This is the kind of tool set professionals use; not only is it inexpensive, but it also has a great safety feature not found in the so-called quality tool sets: The handle will actually break right off if you accidentally hit yourself or anything else, or expose it to direct sunlight.

WARNING: Do not be misled by advertisements for so-called tool sets allegedly containing large numbers of tools. These are frauds! Oh, sure, you get a lot of tools, but most of them are the same kind! For example, you’ll get 127 wrenches, and the only difference is that one will be maybe an eighth of an inch bigger than another. Big deal.

Wood has been the preferred building material for thousands of years, because it is one of the few materials that will rot as well as burn. Basically, there are two kinds of wood: hardwoods such as oak and walnut, which are used by skilled craftsmen to make furniture that you cannot afford; and softwoods such as fir, spruce, and tripe, which are actually members of the crabgrass family and are more suitable to the kinds of projects that an incompetent such as yourself will be doing.

Lumberyards are dangerous and hostile places, inhabited by suspicious men who wear bib overalls and spit a lot and duck behind piles of boards as soon as they see a homeowner coming. These men have lived in the lumberyard since childhood. It is the only home they know. At night, they just pull sheets of plywood over themselves and go to sleep. They don’t like intruders, especially homeowners such as yourself who are buying wood for some idiot home project, and they will try any crafty ruse to drive you away. For example, all their wood measurements are lies. A so-called two-by-four is not two anythings by four anythings, and so on. There is no way you can possibly know what size of wood you’re getting.

Another common trick among the lumbermen is to call things by silly names, such as “soffit.” They dream these names up at night while they’re lying under their sheets of plywood, and they use them to make you feel stupid when you try to order your wood.

YOU: Hi. I’d like two eight-foot two-by-fours, please.

LUMBERMAN: What are they for?

YOU: What?

LUMBERMAN: Are they for joists? Headers? Beams? Rafters? Footers? Sills? Framing? Tenons? Partitions? Templates? Easements? Debentures? Just what is it you want, mister?

YOU: Uh, well, ah, maybe I better go home and recheck my measurements.

Several years ago, some smart businessmen had an idea: Why not build a big store where a do-it-yourselfer could get everything he needed at reasonable prices? Then they decided, nah, the hell with it, let’s build a home center. And before long home centers were springing up, like herpes, all over the United States.