The tool
There are many useless appliances in my flat such as the hand held blender, 5 different heat stylers and the iron that barely get used. But I have never owned a power drill. I thought about buying one but when I looked in Argos they didn’t have any in pink and the others just looked too big and serious. I couldn’t see myself drilling and enjoying it so eventually I decided that this was one item I could live without.
But then a year ago I bought a desk which now sits in various pieces in the office simply because the instructions say it needs a power drill to assemble. I may be a self-professed feminist but I still have flashbacks of me struggling to put together the bed the John Lewis delivery man said would take an hour to assemble. Half a day and a trip to the chiropractor later I was looking at a skewed bed and left over parts. It still can’t take too much weight on it which given the amount of time I spend on it, isn’t a good thing.
So somehow I decided that this was going to be my glass slipper. It’s always hard to choose who to see when you have options. The guy that could come over with a power drill and put up this desk for me would be my prince charming. After all aren’t we meant to find partners who compliment us? I clearly like to shop and buy things I can’t assemble. Ergo I need an assembler.
An easy task you may think. I thought so too. I was convinced that most men would proudly own one. In fact I was surprised that there were no photos on dating sites with men in tool bells and not much else. Trust me fellas, this would get you soooo many dates. It turns out that finding a man with a good power drill is harder than finding an online date that doesn’t lie about his height. This didn’t make sense to me. I remember many a dull trip to B&Q with the ex to find that one screw that would raise his shelving to such heights we invited the family over for viewings. I don’t mean they have to be DIY obsessive as that is as dull as gym obsessed men. I mean, I have pots and pans that have never seen boiling water. So surely someone has drills and DIY stuff that they hardly use? My pots are pretty though.
There was the one guy who said that he could do it for me. I was impressed. Then he 
revealed that he would have to wait until he was back at work as he didn’t actually own the tools and he’d never done anything like this before. This was the same guy who couldn’t remember his wallet when we were meeting up. Could I trust that he would use the right bits? I envisaged myself tweeting away at the desk when it would collapse so I politely declined.
Then there was the youngster who boasted about his drill and said he could even assemble the desk for me. This was one of those gym 
obsessed younguns that certainly seemed to have the muscle to put behind some manual labour…wait a minute, I need a second. Ok I’m back in the room.
Sadly on that fateful night he lost the ability to use his fingers or phone as I haven’t heard from him in 6 weeks. I’m guessing that would preclude him from using a drill. What a tool. I guess the only drilling he really wanted to do wasn’t electrically operated.
Eventually I left the desk to one side but I did manage to hang a mirror and a picture with the help of a girlfriend. And I’ve ordered a pink power drill off the internet. Finding this elusive man clearly wasn’t happening. I guess a girl has to know that sometimes her prince charming may come in the right packaging but need assembling.
© Chelsea Black
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