In Search of Billy Vila

I like to think that I'm pretty competent at life in general.

I'm all for women's lib, job equality, labor undivided by gender and all that shit - I mean, I did spend some pretty impressionable years of my life crawling around in the dirt with an M-16 over my shoulder and I loved it. So yes, yes sure, "We Can Do It" is damn right - I'm walking proof. I've always tried my best to impress on all the young little Susettes I've mentored, taught, or coached over the years that we Susies should definitely be prepared and more than able to do for ourselves and find our own meaning out in the world.

(Better be making me a sandwich while you're telling jokes, Billy.)

But.

Here's why I know I am just completely fucked if I end up alone: cats are terrible at operating power tools, and I suck at true Billy stuff.

Ironically, this came to my attention in the kitchen one day, when my garbage disposal just... stopped working. Honestly, this was just the latest in a string of Billy things that have gone unfixed, untinkered, uninstalled, and just generally undone in my life over time. For instance, I've lived in my place for a year now and there is still a weird floodlight-y fixtureless bulb inexplicably dangling from the ceiling in my dining area, which would take all of four seconds to swap out with something actually useful that did not, say, burn one's retinas with the searing light of 10,000 suns every time one accidentally flips the wrong wall switch. All I need is a ladder and like two screws and one tiny iota of homeowner's motivation, and this eyesore is no longer scorching dark soot spots into my walls whenever an unsuspecting guest helpfully attempts to turn on a light. But you know what?

I just don't do it.

Instead, I never, ever use that lightswitch. The dining area is a Dark Space. This is my solution.

This is partly because places like Home Depot, with their annoyingly-manly warehouse ambiance and their high shelving system designed to completely emasculate anyone under 5'5" and the sheer essence-de-Billy that a high concentration of their products are bathed in (read: I do not have any idea what that item name is even supposed to mean, let alone what it is for or if it is anywhere in the general conceptual vicinity of whatever it is I came in here looking for so y'know what? I'm just gonna grab this Gatorade and get out of here), just make me want to freeze up and wait for a forklift to mow me down like a baby bunny in the aisle. I just know those orange-aproned smug bastards are watching my bewildered wandering on the closed-circuit system and laughing, hopefully accompanied by ad-lib mockumentary David Attenborough-style narration (which is exactly what I would do if I was ever hired at such a place, until I inevitably got fired for not knowing what the fucking fuck anything any customer ever asked me to direct them toward was, which dismissal would likely occur in under 39 minutes).

(Excuse me? Where are the male cans?)

Another factor in this digging-in-of-heels is that I've just sort of refused to amass the requisite tool repository, in part because I am loathe to spend money on things I do not enjoy using, but also because that set is something a husband should come with. Think of the household tools as the Billy side of the dowry.

Is this shitty, lazy, sexist living on my part? Maybe. I do have in my possession a couple hammers, a tape measure that no longer self-retracts, several tubs of spackle in various states from fully-hardened to completely petrified, and a handsaw with a blade so rusty that angry tetanus colonies are actually visible to the naked eye on its surface, but this is the extent of my home-repair kit. So sue me: this is just not an area into which I am interested in taking the solo plunge, and besides, why buy piecemeal when you're in the market for the aforementioned complete set?

Anyway, one day the sink disposal did exactly nothing when I flicked the operative switch. Naturally, I flicked it a couple more times just to be sure, then turned off the water and walked away, thinking to myself, maybe it'll start later.

I know this is a rather illogical thing to think, because of the whole "magic not existing" part about the way the physical world works (sorry about the spoiler, religious folks). But without a Billy on-hand to make said "magic" happen manually, the disposal was pretty much out of my control. I mean, I can't even put a couple screws into my benign ceiling, and this thing has moving parts that could conceivably chew off my arm Fargo-wood-chipper-scene-style? I don't think so.

(So is this "Pete" guy single, or...?)

So about a week and several hopeful-yet-disappointed switch flickings later, the water drain-time had begun to slow noticeably. Again, at first, I continued along the track of "ignore and hope for Billy-less best," but alas, it did not improve.

I did try one solution, likely mentioned by some Billy in years past, which finally dawned on me a couple days into the disposal's labor strike: I located the circuit breaker panel (proving here that I am innately good at Susie stuff, I had arranged a leaning shelf worth of books and plants and photos over that big battleship grey bitch upon move-in and had forgotten about the existence of that weird door). And then, I actually found the correct switch for the disposal (labeled by the previous homeowner as "Disposal," coincidentally), and with an immense amount of hopefulness, I had flicked that switch, too. And you know what?

Nothing fucking happened.

(Flick it again, Sam.)

So, I did what single Susies have done since time immemorial, when Billy-stuff in their lives has steadfastly refused to just fix itself: I called my dad. He suggested I look for a reset switch on the actual disposal, which I had actually briefly done on the day it crapped out and which switch I had also flicked hopefully, several days ago. But, without more promising options, I gave it another shot, thinking maybe there was perhaps another switch yet-unflicked (about as likely as finding a lamppost in the forest at the back of your wardrobe, but whatever - Let Us Pray). Unsurprisingly, though I again found the dirty Billy-ness of the ugly under-sink pipe-y space - exactly the sort of space I avoid at all costs in my house/life (thank god I don't have a garage) - I did not find a portal to Narnia or another magical switch.

But just as I was crawling back out from the cabinet doors in defeat, you know what else I found?

I found the goddamn plug of the disposal, which had somehow been dislodged from the socket.

(Brain: also apparently unplugged.)

I also found that I could really, really use someone just a little more mechanically-skilled in my life.

If he was good at running his fingers through my hair at night and making me laugh in the mornings, I might even be inclined to make him a sandwich or two.