Girls and DIY

I never believed girls were particularly more inept at DIY activities than men, I just presumed it was lack of practice and maybe some disadvantage of strength, the latter being a natural disadvantage, not something we could really help.

I think I've changed my mind. My father set myself and my brother the task of securing the mud guards on our trailer with brackets, the trailer which my dad admitted was "falling apart". I remember adding bits to the mud guards a few years ago and that at the time I found it difficult to do, irritating angles with other parts of the trailer getting in the way when trying to put the screws in, I mentioned this to my father and he seemed surprised.

He demonstrated to my brother and I how to put put the screws in, warning us to be careful because the wood was getting soft and rotten so not to screw in too tight. (Taking an educated guess, I thought screwing a metal screw into soft rotting wood would be fairly easy, wouldn't you?) When my father did it, it made it look like putting screws in butter, unfortunately he had to leave then to go out, leaving my brother and I to continue. My brother started at it first, and quickly found out that our father had done the easiest ones, leaving us with the ones where you were crossing your arms and squished up against the side of the trailer to try and make it go in straight, not to mention it was dark out and our flood light annoyingly goes out when nothing moves for a while. We were just out of it's sensor range and had to get up and move into it's range to make it light up again. My brother quickly complained about the difficulties and I had a go, without much more luck than him at first, but finally I got it in far enough that I didn't have to hold it steady with one hand, my brother then asked if he could leave me to it, and slightly irritated I said yes, so he went and left me to it.. So I went at it on my own but the angle was still annoying and it ended up going in at an angle, the next one was a little further out so not so difficult but I still managed to put it in at an angle, and without my brother there to keep the light turned on I had to either stop and dance about in front of it, or attempt to keep going in the dark but I managed and finished the bracket.

This was when my real problems started; I had to start the new bracket, so I had to try and hold the bracket in place, and the screw while trying to twist the screw in. Now, despite saying it myself, I'm not a complete weakling, but for some reason I just could not make the screw grip and I was twisting yet it wasn't going in! After numerous droppings of the screw and the bracket, along with several frustrated noises I managed to get it in...sort of. I thought once it was in part way, the rest would be easy, and maybe this time I could keep it straight. No such luck, for some reason, after getting it about halfway in it refused to go any further, despite putting all my strength behind it. It didn't help that either that the screws seemed to be made of a soft metal so my attempts eroded away at the sides of dip that you put the screwdriver in to turn the screw, so much that the dip was almost smoothed away.

Frustrated at my futile attempts to get it in any further I moved onto the next one where I had the same trouble as before; unable to screw it in far enough that it wouldn't need holding steady. If the first one had gone in properly it would have held the bracket in place but no, that was slipping about too. Then the inevitable happened, I was putting all my weight behind the screwdriver trying to make it move in when it slipped and I stabbed myself in the finger. At first I thought I was all right but a second or so later it started bleeding, really I should have been surprised that it didn't start bleeding straight away, looking at the size of the crater the screwdriver had made. This was my excuse to stop and go inside to things I'd rather be doing, I'd brandish my wounded digit at my father when he got back, or in the morning if I went to bed before he got back, I collected the tools, scrabbled about on the floor trying to find the screw I'd dropped while lovely dark juice was welling up like a spring. Dumping the tools inside I went to the bathroom to wash my finger, it stung a little but not enough to complain about, dabbed it dry with a tissue, wondering about blood poisoning from rust from the metal before putting a plaster on. That was actually the most painful out of the whole thing, more so than actually stabbing myself, strange.

Being the pitiful human creature that I am I was mulling sadly over my injury when I suddenly felt stubborn and decided to go back out and try and continue, so out I went. I avoided the screw I'd been trying when I'd stabbed myself and set about the other two screws that would fix the bracket in place. I had the usual difficulty of starting it off, but all in all it went a lot better than any of my previous attempts, despite having to wedge one foot on the far side of the wheel to stop it rolling away as I had to put so much force into putting the screws in, my palms had craters from the end of the screw driver.

So basically I managed to put half the screws for one bracket in, but badly, managed to put half the screws for the other bracket in okay, another halfway in and the last one not at all but put a hole in my finger instead, still leaving me with another bracket on that side to do, and the entire other side of the trailer, thought I'd leave that exciting activity for tomorrow.

So basically I'm a complete failure at DIY, if I can't even manage to put screws into rotten wood, how can I have even a smidgen of a chance with anything remotely difficult, is this just me? Or is this a common difficulty with the female kind? Always before I'd prided myself on being able to do things as well or close to as well as the male counterpart of our species, but I think I've just had that pride shoved in my face.....