I just finished installing four new filter cartridges for the well at my daughter’s house. I feel like I have accomplished more today than in my whole life because I am not handy. If not for Claude, I would have had no idea what to do, but it guided me through what to check and how to test the system. This was a giant check mark.
I might be considered technologically handy, so there’s that. For some people, that just means I can put something into Google or an AI when they have tried only posing the question to the air without a strong result. I used to send people Let Me Google That For You links when they did this, but they never thought it was as funny as I did.
One of my favorite ex-girlfriends once planted a beautiful garden in my backyard. She always tried to get me to participate, but I didn’t have the requisite appreciation for diatomaceous earth that she did. I also didn’t love picking up bags of mulch. It seems I am not garden-handy either. I called it a black thumb, but what I think it really boils down to is an unwillingness to get my hands dirty.
Handy shouldn’t be confused with handsy. I’ve never been handsy. I always waited for a green light with a projector behind it and a road sign that says, “She is into it,” next to the couch. It’s not weird that when I wrote the word handsy, the first image I thought of was a rogue Uncle. It would be funny, though, if a handyman named their business HANDSYMAN.
I come in handy as a substitute at trivia night. I should say I would come in handy in that situation because I wouldn’t want to leave the house to actually participate in a trivia night. Tag me in online, and we will win. My widespread knowledge of random facts and discarded ephemera takes my brain-handiness to another level.
The doctors weren’t handy enough to save either of my parents. Putting together an IKEA shelf doesn’t really measure up.
© Jonathan Greene, November 7, 2026
