I totally could have rebuilt this house by myself, but I guess I'll let you do it

Last year, we bought a new house – our “forever home.” These are the words you use to justify sinking your savings into an overpriced house in an overheated housing market that is still a “fixer-upper” in terms of the house having a gaping hole in the roof occupied by a raccoon the size of a Cleveland Browns linebacker. The words “forever home” are soothing. They bring with them the sweet relief that you will never have to buy another home because you would rather cease existing than once again say the words “earnest money.” Our new house may have a large raccoon, but it's the last house we'll ever buy where three Amish guys trap that raccoon and haul it away no questions asked.

“Forever home” is polite. No one wants to hear what it's really called – death house.

Hello, Jen and I are very excited to have you over. Come in, come in. This is our death house – the house we'll die in, either now by raccoon vengeance, or later on when we're old and all the steps – watch your step – kill us.

The house we bought in an inner-ring Cleveland suburb is almost 100 years old, which is good and bad. It's good because houses built 100 years ago were made to last by people who saw nature for what it really is – not a wonder to behold, but a threat to be dominated. Oh, you might say, I love natural things like wind. You know what doesn't love the wind? The cheap materials used to construct your mass-produced 2005 house. You want your home built by a builder who grew up in a tin shack in the 1890s where a persistent draft led to several close relatives succumbing to the grippe and the young home builder being placed in an orphanage where he spent his days studying architecture while angrily muttering “never again” at the wind.

The downside of an older house is that at some point much of the house's critical infrastructure needs to be updated or replaced, most likely by you, because the previous owners pretended the house wasn't falling apart for the last two decades. Stuff like the electrical, masonry, painting, replacing the roof, the garage door, the 1960s faux wood paneling in the basement that still holds cigarette smoke, the doors, the waterproofing, the plumbing, the lighting, new raccoon, etc.

This is the part where a normal person would lament how expensive it all is, but if I actually stopped to think about how much money we've spent I'd be paralyzed with terror and unwilling to leave the bed every morning so when the topic of money is raised, I just think about scenes from Ted Lasso and feel better.

The part of all this that's been the most interesting has been the sheer volume of workers who come to our house and how I react. These are highly capable men and women who work with their hands and who are experienced with the built world around us in ways I am not. When something breaks, I look it up on YouTube to see if I can fix it. If I have the tools, I give it a try. YouTube has convinced a generation of folks like me they could fix an aircraft carrier’s catapult control station if they watch three videos, get the whole afternoon to themselves and have enough Gorilla Glue.

If YouTube fails me, or if the tools are expensive, I call someone. A thing I can do is fix our toilet. A thing I cannot do is replace leaky pipes in our basement. When it comes to something like replacing all the old knob and tube with modern electrical wiring that won't burn our house down in the middle of the night, I am way out of my league – totally not one of those guys who sees swapping out all the electrical in their home as a fun weekend project.

As wave after wave of contracting crews have worked on our home, and as I've talked with them, I noticed something about myself so ridiculous that I am subjecting you to a Substack post about it. When the workers show me what they're doing, and when they delve into the technical minutia of their work, I nod knowingly like I have any clue what they're talking about. If you were watching us on a TV screen, you'd say, that contractor is telling the man who is the homeowner about things the man who owns this house already knows. But my inner dialogue is actually, “Nod along you, fool, pretend to know, so you don't look like a total idiot.” When I do occasionally ask questions, I ask them in a tone that implies I already know the answer, which I do not.

Contractor: You're going to need 280s. Maybe 285s.

Me (nodding like I already knew that): Yeah, that makes sense. (Mental note: Google what a 285 is when he leaves.)

Contractor: We'll get the 285s from Home Depot.

Me: Yeah, that's definitely where I'd get 'em.

Contractor: Yeah.

Me (like I already know the answer): The 280s are fine, but you want the 285s for a project like this, right?

Contractor: I think so.

I don't know if the contractors know I don't know all the things my body language implies I know – either they do, and they're used to guys like me who are idiots, or they don't care. I suppose it doesn't matter. The work gets done. They get paid. The 285s do the damn job — way better than the 280s.

But afterwards, I can't help but wonder: am I a liar? Is it a lie to pretend to know something you don't know just because you are a man who was born with an ego that refuses to acknowledge there are handy things you have not mastered as a trade? Is there harm in cosplay competence? Why did being phony come so naturally? That’s scary. Why didn't I just say: Dude, I have no idea about any of this, so explain it to me like I am a white-collar office worker who shakes a sad desk salad at his desk every day at noon. Am I capable of being that honest instead of pretending I already know how to rebuild an entire house by myself and am just letting other people do it for reasons of helping the economy?

I suspect the real house I need to rebuild * Joe points to his chest and whispers * is in here.

Dude, I can totally do that.