I've never been exactly what you would call a do-it-yourselfer.
Sure, I own a rudimentary set of tools (screwdriver, wrench, drill, thingamabob, doohickey, flux capacitor), but I'm no great shakes at using them.
Last year, I rented a house with some people who embodied the entire idea of home improvement.
When the roof was leaking, their first impulse was not to call the landlord but to call Menards and buy some lumber.
Motorcycle leaking some oil? Don't worry about taking it in to the shop, just buy a new line and spend an hour installing it yourself.
When we had problems with drunk passers-by urinating in our lawn, they designed an automated tennis ball turret to discourage such night time trespassing.
Although I wasn't nearly so good at these sorts of activities as these guys,
I tried to do what I could to participate and help out, thinking that some of their machine mojo would diffuse its way through the atmosphere and into my skull.
And in time, I even started to make helpful suggestions such as that screw goes there"" or ""try rotating it the other way"" and even ""I'm pretty sure there's enough space for a 1.21 gigawatt battery over here.""
So, this year, when I needed a new desk, I thought maybe I could save myself some cash by making one from scratch.
I drew up complicated plans involving drawers, shelves and secret trap doors where I could put my secret stash of imported raisins.
""But wait,"" I told myself. ""Remember this simple fact: You are an idiot.""
So I scrapped the Miller DeskTastic Three Thousand And Twelve and made a new plan. A simple plan. One where nothing could backfire.
I went to Menards, bought some wood and got to work.
I followed all the important adages of construction: I measured twice and cut once. I pre-drilled holes and checked for straightness.
I even had Home Improvement reruns playing on my TV - Jonathon Taylor Thomas was on my side, and nothing could go wrong.
An hour later, I had a desk. Simple, yes, but functional. I could put stuff on it and it would stay there.
Or so I thought.
You see, in my hubris, I decided to demonstrate my work to my roommates by sitting on top of the desk. I smiled as the load-bearing members creaked. My roommates looked worried but I would have none of it.
""It's great!"" I said. ""I can hold my weight without any problems!""
And then I fell right through the center. The desk had collapsed.
And it took with it my dreams of being a handyman.
But it turned out for the best. I swallowed my pride, cleaned up the sawdust, and bought a desk from Office Depot.
It has everything I could need. It has drawers that slide in and out. It has shelves that (amazingly) don't collapse when weighed down with intro biology textbooks.
It even has a super-secret spot for my raisins.
Now if only I could find a place to install my flux capacitor.
The headphone jack of Keaton's iPod is broken. Should he try to fix it himself? Yeah, that's probably a bad idea. E-mail him suggestions for repair at keatonmiller@wisc.edu.
