I'm not a terribly handy person. Sure, I can put together IKEA furniture, but I never acquired basic home maintenance skills when I was growing up. I know some people who have Mr. Fixit dads and Ms. Fixit moms, and it seems they all either learned how to fix things when they were still in diapers, or never learned and never mind since the knowledgeable parent will take care of things for them. Not so with me.

My father was not at all the handy type. True, I did spend a fair amount of my youth in grimy hangars reading books while he fussed around with airplanes, but he didn't really pass on a lot of mundane skills (possibly because he grew up with servants and never lost the "it's someone else's job to worry about this" attitude). And although my mother was a single parent and a homeowner, I don't think she knew how to fix things anymore than I do. I remember her renting a wet vac to clean up a flooded laundry room when I was ten or eleven, but other than that my memories of pesky household problems correlate pretty keenly with my memories of family friends or (if we had no other option) professional repairmen coming to take a look.

Now I'm an adult, and more importantly, an adult who suffers from social anxiety. I know it sounds silly (especially when you consider that I have worked in call centers on multiple occasions, and that my customer service skills are quite good), but I hate calling people. And even more than that, I intensely loathe the idea that strange people (or the landlord!) might come into my house and ... See it? See me? Here the fear gets a little hazy. I never said it was rational. In any case, this drives me to be the best, most self-reliant renter I can be. If there is a problem, you can bet I want to fix it fast, and on my own.

Surely I can't be the only person with this desire. I mean, okay, most of the others probably want to for less dorky reasons, but still. So why isn't there an obvious, universally read manual out there; The Joy of Basic Home Maintenance or some such? Maybe there is and I am just ignorant. Please tell me if that's the case! I'd really love to correct my error. As it is, whenever there's a problem, I run to the internet (thank humanity for having invented such a beautiful series of tubes) and spend hours trying to find any relevant information.

What I really want is a magic book.*

In the ridiculous (but fantastic) Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Melissa Joan Hart was constantly consulting a giant old book (with inexplicable rhinestones on the cover, as if someone in the late 20th century had decided that plain brown leather was not showy enough, and rectified the dullness with a [warning: link talks] BeDazzler), and it occurred to me this morning as I was fretting over our lack of hot water that a book like this would be extremely useful. Yes, Sabrina's book was all about magic, but it talked, it was arranged by topic, and it was full of helpful information and instructions. Now imagine that kind of resource applied to home maintenance, with sections for the water heater, circuit breakers, sink and toilet repair, how to change a lightbulb, care and maintenance of all types of floors, how to get stains or bad smells out of things, and so on. This book would be huge (but portable!), and everything would be cross-referenced and explained in simple language. Wouldn't it be glorious?

I did fix the water problem, by the way. It was as simple as flipping a switch in our circuit breaker panel. Still, I'd love to know where your fixit knowledge comes from, and any reading recommendations you might have in that area.

*I'd also take a primer like the ones in The Diamond Age. Same basic concept, really.