Falling in love with my handyman

Don't take this the wrong way, but I have a soft spot for construction workers, tradesmen and handymen.

I don't fantasise about them. I don't sit at home alone all week and watch videos of the Village People singing YMCA (just on Saturdays).

But I admire them because they remind me of my own uselessness and my father.

I have no idea how many authors it would take to change a light bulb. It depends on how many you could squeeze into the room. None of them would change the bulb, but they might be able to write about their incompetence.

My father, on the other hand, has worked on freezing British building sites since he was 15. He is a plumber. For 45 years, he has spent his days with his head stuck down toilet bowls. Interestingly, he has also spent his nights stuck down toilet bowls. (He drinks too much, my father.)

So I have deep respect for blue-collar workers in Singapore.

Earlier this week, I called the local handyman and immediately got excited. It was like a date. I tidied the place and tried to appear masculine by wearing my 2012 Urbanathlon vest.

When you grow up in a family of manual labourers and you spend your days tapping away on a laptop, self-respect is a bit of an issue, particularly when your father occasionally suggests: "Why don't you get a real job, you penpushing pansy?"

So I put on my best running vest to bolster my manhood. It made no difference. I still looked like a malnourished Peter Crouch. Unperturbed, I rushed to the door to welcome the handyman.

He's plumb, scruffy and only appears to own one shirt. But I love this guy - mostly because he's Singaporean.

No, this column isn't going to descend into a jingoistic rant, but the handyman and I can at least communicate in smatterings of English, Mandarin, Singlish, pointing, grunting and clicking.

I've no idea how the handyman facilitates the communication flow, but there always seems to be plenty of it during our discussion.

Until recently, most of my handymen had hailed from China. I've got nothing against the guys - they were all decent and industrious - but a few instructions did get lost in translation. I asked them to fix a couple of loose tiles in the bathroom once and they built me a new kitchen. But these things happen. Or at least, they used to until I found my beloved handyman.

Like my father, he's a proper straight-talking, no-time-for-niceties kind of guy.

He doesn't beat around the bush. He beats the bush with a monkey wrench and then charges you $50 for the service.

I had asked him to rip out and replace the old grouting - the silicone between the bathroom tiles - in the shower and he replied: "Yah, very mouldy, very ugly ah."

He's a terrific handyman, but never let him host Miss Universe. Crouching in the shower, he examined the peeling silicone near the drain and muttered: "Yah, very black, black one, not nice, cannot get so wet."

"But it's a shower," I replied. "I cannot have a dry shower. If I strip naked and wash under a dry shower, men in white coats would take me away."

"Yah, but you very tall, the water bounce, bounce and go everywhere. In Singapore, the humidity, cannot, silicone turn black very fast one."

So my height is the issue. In Singapore, only dwarves are blessed with gleaming shower tiles.

But he had a welcoming solution. "This one I don't use silicone. This one use cement, cannot go black so fast."

That's why he's a great handyman. Until he came along, his predecessors were obsessed with silicone. They kept a silicone squirting thingy on their plumber's belt and sprayed it around like Han Solo firing his blaster.

In Harrison Ford's voice, I always heard them say: "Hokey religions and wet cement are no match for a good silicone blaster at your side, kid."

Two handymen ago, I had a guy I nicknamed "Silicone, Silicone" because that's all he ever said.

"Some water is seeping through the back of the sink," I'd say.

"Silicone, silicone."

"The fridge door won't close properly."

"Silicone, silicone."

"My daughter won't stop talking at meal times."

"Silicone, silicone."

But my handyman keeps his silicone blaster in his holster unless it's a genuine plumbing emergency.

And I'm turning into a plumber's damsel in distress. I fear it's only a matter of time before I start flooding my own toilet just so he can turn up and tell me how filthy my bathroom is.

Get The New Paper for more stories.