I can catch a plane, a ball, a cold and the flu, but the one thing I can’t catch is home improvement skills.

I recently painted a small bathroom cabinet. The project took three days, not including 11 trips to the big box hardware store.

Meanwhile, on six different cable channels, people with home improvement skills ripped out small half-baths and replaced them with master baths featuring double sinks, heated floors, lighted mirrors, saunas and walk-in showers large enough to wash a team of Clydesdales. What’s more, they did it all in under 60 minutes.

This week, my inner home-improvement self was prompted to redo the shelf paper in the kitchen cabinets. I upped my game thinking I could try peel-and-stick vinyl tile. I asked a clerk if it was hard to cut vinyl tile. He guffawed and said all I’d need is a knife.

The man in the blue vest lied. After leaving a small trail of blood from the kitchen to that bathroom medicine cabinet, I returned the vinyl squares and bought peel-and-stick shelf paper.

Peel-and-stick lives up to its name. You peel and it sticks—to you, your clothes, your scissors, your hair, the sides of the cabinets, the tops of the cabinets and to every other inch of peel-and-stick in a 3-mile range.

My skill set deficiencies are not new. In seventh grade, girls took home economics and boys took industrial arts. Boys made projects with hammers and saws.

Girls learned how to sew a shift. A shift is a dress resembling a pillowcase with an armhole on each side and a zipper in the back. Our teacher Miss Grove, the first person I ever knew to wear contact lenses, made me rip my zipper out and put it in again. Miss Grove blinked her eyes a lot.

The fourth time Miss Grove told me to rip out the zipper and try again, I had to buy a new zipper. Miss Grove’s eyes blinked faster and faster each time she checked my work. Eventually, the entire left side of her face began twitching wildly.

Being that our school was progressive, for one week the boys took home ec and the girls took shop. I was sure I would do well in shop. My dad knew how to build; my brother knew how to build. Surely, I could build, too.

We made letter holders — three pieces of wood, nailed and glued together. At some point in the process, we were to put the letter holder in a vice. I crushed it.

Literally.

The shop teacher had me try again with new pieces of wood. As he watched over my shoulder, he took the soon-to-be letter holder from my hands, finished it, put it in the vice and said I could watch the glue dry.

Those sorts of experiences might set a lot of people back, but not me.

I remain a home improvement visionary — albeit without the skills or tools.

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