Kevin the Handyman: my anxiety-inducing boyfriend.

Meet Kevin. Manager of Panera, father of Ren, looker-after of two wayward chihuahuas (bless his heart), but most importantly fixer of things. I've never been with someone that was so handy, so self-sufficient (no offense to you {insert ex's name here}. You were less self-sufficient but, trust me, it fit your personality).

So, the things. I will give him this: he knows what he is doing...most of the time. He primed the oil tank by reading about it online (yes, it was smokey downstairs for a while today, but hey, that probably wasn't his fault. Right?). He installed not one but TWO hanging wine racks for my glasses. He changes his own oil, uses power tools like a champ, and is currently in the middle of ripping up a rotted floor in the basement. There was the time he installed AC's into the two bedrooms upstairs (so what if we used balled up socks to block the airholes all summer) and of course he redecorated the now infamous "lanai" all by his lonesome one night while I was at work. He breaks into his own house when he has no key, puts together Ikea furniture with no instructions (does he have a death wish?!) and found an old jeep cherokee door at a junkyard to replace the smashed-in door he had. But the most anxiety-ridden project up til now definitely has to be when he transformed into super-geek-squad status and replaced the camera on his phone. That's right, let me say that again, he took apart a cell phone--completely--and replaced the camera. How, you ask? YOUTUBE.

For some reason he believes in YOUTUBE so much that he feels by watching another do-it-yourselfer expert, he will somehow become one. That may be the case, but it may also be that HE FAILS MISERABLY AND DOESN'T HAVE A PHONE ANYMORE. This is definitely the belief I had when I sat 3 feet from him as he began taking his phone apart, piece by piece, while he listened to a strange British man describe his every move. Pause. Play. Rewind. Repeat. I want to be supportive, so instead of telling him how insane I thought he was, I just sat and did my jigsaw puzzle. I did not look up. I did not utter a word. I barely breathed at all. The anxiety was building up inside me while so much uncertainty ensued: what would happen when he did, indeed, take the motherboard out? How would we afford a new phone for him? What if something happened and he lost every contact ever? Every pic? HIS WHOLE LIFE!? *here is a example of me being crazy and hopeless and completely irrational about things, like cell phones* And what is he doing while I am doubting everything ever in the universe? He's smiling along to the video, using his tiny screwdriver and his tiny pry tool to take out every last tiny computer part of this piece of electronic equipment. He doesn't know I'm freaking out, so he even goes on to say, once the whole thing is apart and the new phone has been installed, "Hmmm, he doesn't say how to put it back together...I don't remember where this piece went...um, maybe...here?" Well that does it! I can't take it anymore. I smile my fakest smile over to him and, ever so lovingly, declare that I think he's a complete lunatic for what he did, how are we going to keep in touch now, what is going to happen when he can't get a new phone, blah blah blah CRAZINESS!

The calm look on his face doesn't change and, like any smart man, he ignores my hysteria completely.

Fast forward 5 minutes: I'm now avoiding eye contact like the plague. At this time I've moved on to straight up irrational ANGER at him for breaking his cell phone and trusting a website (the one that brought us Gangnam Style, mind you) to be able to take him through this successfully. As I'm getting ready to scold him and explain why, as his elder, I know more than him, not only about life, but about cell phones, tiny tools, and idiotic websites that make montages of kitties famous for god's sake, he is putting the last baby screw back into his phone. Now I'm quiet because I know that, in seconds from now, he is going to feel an overwhelming rush of regret wash over him when his phone stays black as he holds down the power key.  I don't want it to seem like gloating with my I-told-you-so speech, so I make the decision to hold off. I'm a really good girlfriend.

Good at everything except believing in my Mr.-Fix-It boyfriend. Cue MY overwhelming feeling of stupidity and regret...NOW.

Wouldn't you know that damn phone not only turned on, but took an unsuspecting picture of me, a face full of true shock and surprise.  He snapped away at different things in the living room, testing his work. Then he found all his contacts, pictures, and even sent me an adorable test text to make sure that worked as well.  He was a proud peacock as he acted like he didn't care that the woman he loved had no faith in him whatsoever.
As his last way of showing me there were no hard feelings, and seeing as this was not one of my prettiest facest or proudest moments ever, like the good boyfriend he is, he erased any and all evidence of the first (and last) night I doubted his handyman skills.

Jerk.