Every mechanic in the South Bay has dubbed my car a death trap; trying to get one of them to work on it is like asking someone I hardly know to suck snake poison out of my butt.

“Yeah…I like you and all but uhh… wow look at the time, see ya!”

A while back, my transmission gave up the ghost; I found myself castaway on Walking Distance Island.

One of my friends suggested that I do the work myself.

He uttered those famous last words: “How hard could it be?”

By the stroke of midnight my engine was in a thousand pieces, and I was in a state of overwhelming catatonic hysteria while my friend lay in the fetal position covered in grease.

We estimated it would take us eight hours to finish the job; that could have been the case if my car hadn’t been the embodiment of Murphy’s Law.

The next day we gave it another shot; we armed ourselves with a couple of hoagies and a 12-pack of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.

Everything was going great, and it looked as if we were almost done.

“Highway to Hell” was playing on the radio.

Our spirits were high; we danced around my friend’s carport singing the chorus to AC/DC’s free-spirited rock anthem.

The new transmission was put together and installed.The only thing left was to put the motor back in.

We spent the next three hours wrestling with it, but it was merciless.

On the third day, we finally succeeded.

The engine, which refused to go back in where it had so easily come out, finally fit like a glove.

We smashed our bones on the ground as the obelisk rose out from the wrenches and beer bottles that littered the cement floor.

Elated at our achievement, I felt like I had taken control of my life, which was a new and a strange sensation for me.

I was no longer a helpless average joe at the mercy of specialized labor; I had taken one more step in becoming a Jack-of-all-trades.

People should not be so afraid to get their hands dirty and do things themselves.

Give yourself some credit; you are probably a lot more capable than you think you are. Some people think that it is better to be great at one thing than to do many things well; to those people I say, “You don’t know jack.”

We live in a world where specialization has taken away our ability do things that were once common knowledge.

Like Shamans of primitive cultures, new world tradesmen perform ritualistic healing ceremonies to rid our vehicles of evil spirits and cast out curses laid upon our plumbing.

The do-it-yourself attitude of my grandfather’s generation was comprised of men who built their own houses and changed their own oil.

What the hell happened?

Through the specialization of our labor forces, we have created a culture where one hand seldom knows what the other is doing.

If you need a plumber, it is going to cost you at least $60 just to have them to show up to your house.

Most of the time all they have to do is snake out your pipe in order to get things working again.

We gladly shell out our hard-earned money because we believe these tradesmen possess some secret knowledge.

It is important that we get back to a comprehensive mind set in order to preserve our independence.

The next time you need a helping hand, look, and you can find it dangling at the bottom of your wrist.