The Art of Being Useless
Vol. 2, Issue 34
I ’ve always admired handy people: people who can build things or weld things or do under-the-hood things. I’m not a handy person and most would say that I’m downright useless when it comes to completing even the simplest of home repairs.
I think it’s in my genes. My mother used to say my father had “feet for hands” and told tales about how he almost set the house on fire while changing a fuse. Because of this he was always outsourcing projects elsewhere–minor plumbing issues, lawn mowing, driveway repaving, oil changes. I made a mental note and swore that I’d break the chain in the same way a scrappy teen born into a legacy of high school dropouts would vow to be the first to graduate college. I will be the first Daulerio to change a tire without slicing open my hand.
It never happened. I've still never never changed a tire; neither have I mowed a lawn. It once took me six hours to put together a Little Tikes Cottage for my children and I couldn’t get the roof to lay flush. Is that what you say–lay flush?
I am my father’s son.
****
I live in a house. It’s technically my wife’s house, but she’ll refer to it as “our house," but I will not because of this other deep-seated financial shame I carry with me as well. Thanks to a lifetime worth of erratic, debt-filled financial decisions, spotty employment, and a couple years of financial purgatory thanks to the Hogan lawsuit, I won’t be able to ever purchase a house for us until late next century. And then I'll be dead so it won't matter anyway.
Once I got sober I had the unrealistic expectation that I’d become more useful–helpful, even–around the house. I thought one of the main barriers was that I’d spent most of my adult life in a befogged state of existence. With a clearer head I’d surely be able to follow instructions and make everybody happy.
I do try to contribute elsewhere, wherever I can, where I won’t break anything. I unload the dishwasher and change baby diapers and throw some laundry in the dryer and take out the trash. I’ve also managed to turn the downstairs office into an arboretum thanks to my obsessive (and expensive) house plant collection.
But these are chores any ten-year-old could do. When there is real work to be done–some curtain rods to be hung, holes to be drilled, anchors to be fitted, or shower heads to be replaced–we have to call our regular handyman, Quincy.
I love Quincy, he’s basically family because he’s here so much. When he first started coming around I’d hover over him and feign knowledge about the job he was doing. He’d placate my sad inquisitiveness with some head nods before gently cutting me off.
“Well, I’ve got to do a kitchen remodel across town later this afternoon so lemme spackle up these extra wide holes you made in the hallway here and get goin’…”
I always hoped the parts or tools he needed to do these jobs were extremely specialized, shipped in from an exotic Scandinavian warehouse only a licensed professional like him would have access to, only it was always Home Depot.
At the very least I wish I could assemble our children's toys without fear of maiming them. Two Christmas Eves ago I tried to put together my one-year-old son’s kitchenette set and within seconds of him lightly touching it the next morning one of the cabinets came off and the oven door fell on the dog.
I’ve spent many late nights desperately Googling “Handyman Camps” to see if there was a place for people like me to go to learn some basic skills, like when to use a socket wrench and what is a socket wrench, exactly?
But with the advent of YouTube there’s an endless catalogue of fixer-up channels most beginners have free access to where they'll find step-by-step visual instructions on how to replace drywall or snake a tub drain. I can’t follow what they’re doing for more than a few minutes and then I’m off to The Sill buying more plants. I had to find a way to contribute more to her house and make it feel more like our house.
****
Julieanne always talked about what she wanted to do to the kitchen–replace the cabinets, redo the floors, etc.–knowing that if she said this in front of me it was about as useful as saying it in front of our toddlers. I understood that she actually didn’t want my feedback or help in this matter. She just tried to make me feel included.
The one thing I heard that was possibly directed at me was “We need a new dishwasher.” I said I’d take care of it. She said “Sure!” in the most lovingly faithless way possible.
So when I had a little more disposable income a few months ago I knew exactly how I’d spend it. I texted Quincy and told him we were in the market for a new dishwasher.
“Okay, I’ll talk to Julieanne…”
“No, no, no, Quincy–I am going to buy us a new dishwasher.”
He asked what kind I wanted, pausing, and within seconds I texted him back. “Just gimme the best!”
The next day he delivered us the Bosch 100 series 24-inch stainless steel model with top controls with an Easy Glide Rack System, FlexSpace Tines, and EnergyStar control. It was the Cadillac of dishwashers. Or maybe it was the Ford Escort?
I wouldn’t know!
He and his apprentice installed it in two hours while I was upstairs dicking around on my phone. When I finally came down and saw it plugged in and connected to the water line, I was bursting with foolish (unearned) pride. After the maiden cycle finished I opened the Bosch’s stainless steel door and admired the sparkling plates and glassware like it was a kimberlite full of diamonds.
When Julieanne finally got home from work and I unveiled it to her she was...less than pleased.
Apparently top controls and stainless steel were terrible choices. And it didn’t come with a decent drying function. And it was ugly. She said “ugly” in such a way that I felt insulted for both myself and the dishwasher. I pushed back. “It’s a Bosch 100! Top of the line!”
Mostly, I was confused. I didn’t know there were specifications. There were, but she just didn’t believe I’d follow through with the dishwasher purchase.
I went back to my natural, resting state of uselessness in one well-intended overstep.
****
For the next several weeks I began to get angry, though, because I’d recognize a familiar gasp and heavy sigh every time she’d try to preempt the Bosch 100’s cycle to remove a few baby bottles. She’d open the door and get hot-blasted by a sauna-level outpouring of steam. It was like the dishwasher knew she hated it.
Every time she used it she would complain about it and this only reinforced my fear of uselessness. How can I ever be an adequate contributor to this family if I can’t even buy a damn dishwasher?
****
One day I asked Quincy if I could be an unpaid apprentice just to learn a few basic things for myself and also so he didn’t have to rush over to our house every time I assembled a shoe rack backwards.
He answered in a serious, gentle tone: “Listen, if I taught you how to do what I do, I wouldn’t have a job.”
He sensed my disappointment.
“Hey, look at it this way: you wouldn’t call me up to write an article–I would call you.”
I nodded forlornly and let him get back to work.
****
After the dishwasher debacle, I wanted to make it up to her and once again try to prove my worthiness. The opportunity came sooner than I expected. We had some major clogging problems with our upstairs toilet and we needed a new one.
(In fact, I had my most woeful force majeure moment after one gruesome incident: I hid in the bedroom while Julieanne, in a rush to shower before work and seven months pregnant at the time, was wrapped in a towel, deftly maneuvering a plunger to dislodge some some hell-sent obstruction that was in jeopardy of causing a major flood. I pretended I didn’t know what was happening and ran downstairs and gagged.)
I eventually texted Quincy and said I wanted to buy a new toilet because our upstairs one wasn’t flushing properly. Actually, I wrote “Julieanne clogged the toilet again and it broke,” because I was still a little sore about the whole dishwasher thing.
The next day he came back with the Kohler K-series Highline Pressure Lite, built to handle, uh, more. He also installed a new elongated slow-close seat, free of charge.
Unlike the dishwasher, which is stealthily quiet, the toilet is wall-shakingly loud. After a flush it sounds like a military jet has taken off from inside our bathroom. We can’t flush it late at night because it wakes the children but, hey, no more clogs, right?
Amazingly, the noise didn’t bother her that much. She appeared to maybe even actually like the toilet. Or at least was impressed at how quickly I decided to solve a problem, even if it was one I most likely caused.
****
Next week will be my four-year sober anniversary. There’s a saying in AA that after five years of sobriety “you get your marbles back,” and I’ve always tucked that away as an important milestone I want to achieve. One-day-at-time is what we need to focus on but did you ever see that Bradley Cooper movie Limitless? The one where he takes special pills that instantly give him like a 200 I.Q. and he possesses super, hypnotic empathy, plus he’s able to finish writing a novel in a day and game the stock market and run really fast?
That’s what I hope will happen to me for when my marbles come back–I want new marbles. Not, like, super marbles. Just the kind that will help me finish reading a book in under a week or help me properly fold a fitted sheet. Or it would be really cool to be able to use one of those levelers with the radioactive-looking green goop inside it to hang pictures. I always wanted to learn how to use one of those.
Do you know what else would be a great skill to acquire? I want to whistle real loud with my thumb and pinky in my mouth. The kind of whistle that could hail a taxi or move cattle across an arid dust-swept plain.
Or maybe I could finally learn how to use that socket wrench, or just learn how to use something, anything at all, while there is still time.
– AJD
Lofty Goals For the Newly Well
By The Small Bow
Stronger people for strange times
What are your new goals in sobriety? You have all this time and headspace now, so make the most of it. Notice that no one said "spend more time on the internet" so keep that in mind. Thanks to all who contributed. If you 'd like to contribute to August's Inverse Pitching, look for the prompt down in the gray-boxed area. We need you!
"I'm trying to become more vulnerable and open to the possibility of failure: letting myself love someone else and/or applying and being accepted to law school. Hopefully both." –Anonymous
"I want to be content on my own. I don't want to even say happy. Just okay is enough." – Frances M.
"Rebuild savings. Buy a car to race. Write a book (not the pretentious kind). Get through quarantine semi-sane. Stop smoking. Forgive myself." – Deirdre R.
"When I wasn't sober, I used to make up goals that revolved around physical activity – I'll run a half-marathon, cycle a century... And while I have run a few half-marathons and have gone on some long bike rides, my goals are more spiritually focused: I want to learn how to protect the little boy inside me; I want to make amends with my mom (truly difficult given she abused me when I was four); I want to learn to have boundaries." – Ron Z.
"Neither sober nor addicted but floating between, wanting a third state to see things as they are, to know this moment is the pinnacle of perfection. I want to teach that to my child who is 6’3” and can lift more and strike harder than I ever did." – M.G.
"Learn how to live alone again while overcoming the urge to embark on isolating, stay-cation benders. Cultivate self-discipline. Channel chaotic, restless energy into creative productivity." – Laura A.
"I want to keep time in my freelance schedule to keep up my practice of writing and sharing my own work. To not let my fears about not making enough money sap my commitment to doing this. To give all the care and thoughtfulness to myself that I’d give to a client." – Sara C.
"It's been 15 months out of 765 on this planet. That's 2% of my lifetime. It feels much more substantial than that. I have been taking my sobriety for granted. It feels like I have this thing beaten. [But] I'm fooling myself. Time to recommit to an active, not passive sobriety." – Bill L.
"Meditate every day, go to Scotland next year, start writing again, learn to speak French, sponsor more women, remember and apply the 4 agreements, be more fearless like facing my fear of heights, and go zip lining." – Monica C.
"I will try to practice serenity (accepting things as they are and not how I would have them) while driving in South Florida. Accepting the fact I will be retiring in 14 months." – Michael M.
"In sobriety, I found the discipline to go to a gym and do cardio to improve my health. I told a Zoom group I needed to go out to some public grass and just do jumping jacks and jump-roping, but am still too embarrassed. They told me to [just] do it! Still looking for the will, like I had to find to go to a meeting for the first time." – Terry S.
"My daily goal is one more day of sobriety. One more day with a clear morning head, a recycling bin that doesn’t reek of alcohol and total freedom of care about when the liquor store closes. I’m seven-plus months in. I’m good. By the end of my first year, I expect to discover the cure for Covid. If I can quit alcohol, why not?" – Marianne M.
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Illustration by Edith Zimmerman
