Mr. Fixit

On Monday evening, we were on our way out the door to go to dinner when we discovered that one of the pipes to the water heater had sprung a leak. Brian shut off the hot water valve, looked everything over while I got a towel, and then said we'd stop by Lowe's after dinner to get what he needed to fix it.

That is pretty typical of how things go when something breaks around the house. And after I started thinking about it, I realized just how helpless I would be if Brian weren't around. For example, here are some things that Brian has fixed that I wouldn't have known how to deal with.

• Lighting the pilot light for our water heater when we first moved into the house. I've never used gas appliances, so I probably would have let the water run for like an hour wondering why it wouldn't get hot.
• Changing the filter on the heater/air conditioner. I didn't even know it had one.
• Reattaching hoses inside our washing machine when it started leaking all over the floor.
• Putting new shingles on the roof after a windstorm. I probably wouldn't have even noticed any were missing.
• And of course, most recently, the water heater. Now, I'm sure I could have figured out the shutting off the hot water part since the valve was right above the leak, but the rest of it not so much. When we got home from dinner he shut off the water to the house, drained the water heater, replaced the leaking piece of pipe, and soldered the new one in place.

This list doesn't even include projects he's taken on voluntarily that I would also have no idea how to do. Such as:

• Putting in a dog door
• Installing an RO system in the kitchen
• Installing a new dishwasher
• Setting up surround sound
• Setting up a network so we could share files between our 3 computers
• Scraping the ceilings
• Reparing drywall and texturing the ceilings
• Taking down a mirrored wall

So here's what I'm wondering-- is it just a guy thing to know how to do all this stuff? Or should I know it too and you all think less of me now because I don't? Or does it come with owning a house and figuring out how to fix stuff? Or does Brian just know all this because he worked in construction and picked it up there? He pointed out to me that after almost 4 years in construction if he didn't know some of this stuff that would be pretty sad. Whatever it is, I'm just glad the only handyman I ever have to call is Brian:)