Just put a magnet on it

My husband doesn't fix things around the house. He's not handy whatsoever, and if you were to ask him about it, he would say that he works with a different type of tool set.

He's a software engineer, and if you need some complex application that can manage 1232345 functions per second, he's your man. But ask him to fix a doorknob, and he's calling Andy Handyman stat.

I'm okay with that because I happen to be handy (at least handier than him), and I learned it from my dad.

As a little girl, I would help my dad build sheds and fences, help him fix the car, or some general plumbing job--always marveling at how easily he calculated all the measurements and angles. My dad just knew how things went together--how they worked. It was something that mesmerized me about my dad, and to be honest, it still does.

So the other day I give him a call. I want to install a cat door and needed a drill and saw to get the job done, and the best man to help me in the purchasing process is definitely my dad. Of course his mind goes beyond big pictures and straight down to the nitty gritty. He asks me how long the blades on the drills are, how thick the door is, he asks what the door looks like and how many volts the drill is, and then he asks what I believe he thought to be a fundamental question, What kind of door is it?

Huh?

Is it metal or wood?

I don't know. I tell him. How would I find that out? 

Then he said it. 6  simple words that blew my mind...

Put a magnet on it.

And I ran downstairs and grabbed a magnet off the frige, walked over to the door and snap! The magnet practically flew out of my grasp to attach itself to my METAL door.

Well there ya go, he tells me... You'll need to use the metal blades on the saw. 

And just like that the crisis is averted.

My dad has this fantastic way of making things so simple. You wonder to yourself, "Why didn't I think of that!?!?" And I wish I had that in me. I remember as a kid him always telling me "Make it easy on yourself."
It's like he always thought I went about things in the hardest, most inefficient way possible. Make it easy on yourself, daughter.

He once told me this was his favorite song, and appropriately so!