My preferred method of DIY is GSETDI (get somebody else to do it).
It's not that I'm lazy.
Most of the time I'm busier than a senior researcher for Fred Nile.
It's just that I'm incompetent.
Not deliberately so, like the guy who serves up inedible dishes just so he won't be asked to cook again.
I really give it a go.
But if I have assembled, say, a DIY wardrobe, I will find myself with at least half a dozen important-looking screws left over and, puzzlingly, at least one major plank of wood.
My DIY imbecility, however, is perhaps best illustrated by the tale of the microwave oven shelf assembly.
We didn't want the new microwave taking up valuable bench space, so I hit on the idea of whacking it up on the kitchen wall.
Too easy.
After assembling all of my tools (well, my next door neighbour's tools) and collecting all of my equipment from the hardware store (well, not quite all of it, because I am one of those guys who always has to return for some unforeseen screw, plug, drill bit or grommet) I was ready.
I measured where the first drill hole had to go - two pencil lengths and one nib from the corner, four fingers up from the bench (rulers are so limiting and uncreative, aren't they?).
Up went the first right angle bracket.
Okay, I might have opted for structural strength at the expense of aesthetics - inch-wide tungsten struts, I admit, don't clutter the pages of Home Beautiful.
But this baby could take the weight of an aircraft carrier.
Things were going swimmingly until I came to erect the second bracket.
With an uncanny eye for detail, I noticed I would have to drill a hole about two thumb widths away from an electrical socket, namely the electrical socket into which my power drill was plugged.
Well, I didn't know they had battery-powered drills, did I? Or that I could use one while I shut down the electricity supply to my house?
I was so quick to perceive the potential for danger that I rang my wife to explain why this could be our last conversation on earth.
And here's the scary part - I then proceeded to drill that hole.
I could have - should have, some might say - been incinerated.
I was lucky.
I completed the job, and I am chuffed to say that magnificent specimen of shelf stood rigid and proud for years.
The decorative trim I stuck around it - in a fetching iridescent lime to match the chic formica bench tops - peeled off a few weeks later.
But the shelf itself would have stayed riveted to that wall even if Cyclone Tracy had blown through my neighbourhood.
It may not surprise you to learn that my handyman career is pretty much over.
I can change a light bulb but replacing a tap washer is at the outer limits of my field of capability.
I am no longer encouraged to use power tools, or come to think of it tools of any kind.
My wife is our home handywoman, because she's really good at it, and I'm not.
Having heard me complain for years about sticking dresser drawers, she dismantled them the other day and fixed them in about five minutes flat.
My contribution was to fetch her a hammer and make the tea.
The secret here, in case you haven't noticed, is to play to your strengths, and to the strengths of others.
Few people on this planet can dangle a tea bag like me.
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