I bought a drill. I am now a man.

A few weeks ago I bought a drill. My first drill. I don’t have a car. I don’t play football or rugby. I’m not tall. I don’t have a wife or anyone who calls me “Dad”. I don’t catch or kill my own food. I don’t smell. But I do have a drill. This is an important affirmation for me. Ever since I bought it, I feel a little bit different. I am now a fully formed man.

What I have learned over the past few weeks is that a drill doesn’t necessarily need to be a functional or practical tool. It doesn’t even need to be used really. Rather, it is a monument to one’s masculinity. I keep it on my bookshelf, next to my volumes on Caravaggio and a history of the theatre. When I have guests for dinner, I like to hold the drill in a casual, free-and-easy sort of way which suggests that I am comfortable with power tools, that I’m just a regular kinda guy who knows how to fix stuff. It’s the great balancer in my life. It lends me a certain virile gravitas whose deficiency I occasionally suffer from.  

Feeling confident in my new role as a fully fledged man, I invited a lady to dinner in my apartment last week. The garlic quail was sizzling and my cous cous was steaming in readiness. The drill sat proudly on my bookshelf, recently buffed in preparation. As we chatted about the Australian Riesling we were enjoying, I gently encouraged her towards the bookshelf. “Wow, you have a drill” she cried. “I grew up with power tools. They’re just a part of my life”, I venture. “I thought your entire family was into art and all that?” she says. “That too. Art and power tools. It’s a heady mix”. She pushes me. “Can you use it?”. I laugh. “Show me”, she retorts. A heavy, nauseous sensation fills my stomach. “Show you?” I had never contemplated this happening. I slowly lift the drill from the shelf. “I was going to hang a picture here actually”, I say, gesturing to the wall. “Why don’t I drill a hole , show you how this baby rolls”, I proffer, tempting a terrible fate. I place a drill bit in the mouth of the tool. This is easy, I can do this. I fire it up and start revving it like it’s an extension of my masculine prowess. I stare into her eyes as I feel the powerful vibrations racing through me. I start drilling into the wall. But it’s not drilling. It’s not even piercing the wall, let alone making a hole. What the hell is wrong? You’re a drill, now drill a damn hole already! I halt my drilling. “There we go”, I say. “You haven’t drilled anything” she says. She pulls it out of my hand, studies it briefly, clicks a switch and hands it back “The drill bit was going backwards. It needs to turn clockwise to make a hole” she says. A part of me slowly dies deep inside me. I have put the drill back in its box now where it will remain forever, a monument not to the masculine prowess I had dreamed of, but rather to a wilting attempt to align myself with the world of DIY, which has proven so successful for so many men in the past. Sadly, I am not one of them. 

© Simon Tierney 2012