Why Every Guy Needs a Handyman
Canadian Don is no hired wrench. He’s my partner, my mentor, the man who taught me how to own a home
By Bob Drury; Art by Andrio Abero/33rpm
“Yep, she sure is runnin’ slow.”
Canadian Don approached my recalcitrant pipes wearing the look of a
lion tamer. “Got ’er down to a trickle, eh? Have you changed the water
filter?”
The wha . . . ?
“Never mind. Your water tank—she’s down in the basement?”
“Yes, sir.” This I was sure of.
Turns out there is a foot-long, bonglike thingamajig attached to water
tanks in rural houses like mine, which draw their water from wells.
Inside this casing is a plastic, honeycombed water filter that must be
changed every 3 to 6 months. The water table where I live is infused
with iron, and as the iron builds up in the water filter . . . well,
you get the idea. And so did I now, as I peered at the glutinous,
orangey mud-colored liquid clogging the plastic vessel.
“A little bunged up,” Don said. “Good rule of thumb, when you can’t see the water inside, it’s time to change ’er.”
He showed me how to shut off all the water in my house by turning the
six leevers (aha!) attached to my water tank, then unscrewed the
plastic holder containing the used water filter (best to have a bucket
to catch the excess runoff), cleaned out the casing with a rag, dropped
in a new water filter, and screwed the entire contraption back in. The
previous owners had left several clean water filters on a shelf above
the washing machine. I’d barely noticed them before and had thought
perhaps they had something to do with . . . well, let’s be honest, I
had no clue what they had to do with.
Upstairs, in the kitchen and both bathrooms, my water now streamed like
Niagara Falls. Canadian Don glowed as if he’d been polished for the
occasion. “Got ’er done,” he said.
“Don, thanks a million. What do I owe you?”
“Aw, the first one’s free. Buy me a beer.” I’ve bought him many.
In the 8 years since I met Canadian Don, a few things have changed.
He now charges $35 an hour, and he’s gotten a couple of new
sweatshirts. Most important, he now does jobs with me, not for me. He
taught me how to rebrick the skirt around my pool using sand, er,
borrowed from the local beach, and just how deep to plant a young
juniper tree. I don’t earn $500 an hour, so I now know how to replace a
leaky faucet and, when a perfectly good lightbulb doesn’t seem to work,
how to use a pliers to extend the metal doohickey in the light socket
that conducts the electrical current. (Okay, so he’s not so great with
the terminology.)
Not long ago, Don dropped by to eyeball the two new bathroom sinks we
planned to install. I asked him if he had any clients “more dumb” than
me. “Well, not many,” he said. He must have noticed my shoulders sag.
“But a few,” he quickly added.
“I’ve had some people call me over for a broken light when they’ve just
forgotten to throw the switch. Or the circuit breaker goes off, so they
go out and buy a new washer and dryer. Believe it or not, some people
think everything in their home is supposed to run by magic.
“So, no, I don’t think you’re quite that stupid.”
He paused. “Not anymore.”
