My Dad Fixed the Sink. I Googled It and Called a Guy. What Does That Make Me?

The faucet was leaking again — a slow, rhythmic drip that said, “You are not your father.”

I stood over the sink, squinting at it like it had personally insulted me. Somewhere deep in my DNA, a voice whispered: “You can fix this.”
It was probably my dad’s. Or a Home Depot commercial.

I opened YouTube. I searched “leaky faucet easy fix.”
I clicked a guy named Ron whose hands looked like they’d seen war.
Two minutes in, he said “This part’s simple,” and then immediately used three tools I don’t own and a word I thought was a pasta.

So I called a plumber.
A man. A real one.
The one showed butt-crack when he bent over.
The kind with scars on his hands and no social media presence.
He fixed the sink in 11 minutes.
He charged me $180 and exactly 0 judgment.

But I judged me.
Because my dad? My dad would’ve fixed it with one crescent wrench, three curse words, and a Schlitz.

He had a drawer full of loose screws that somehow solved everything.
I have a drawer full of expired batteries and Apple Watch bands I pretend I’ll reuse.

When I was a kid, I watched him fix a toilet with a butter knife and a glare. Now I can’t even hang a picture frame without Googling “how to find a stud” and being personally attacked by the search results.

The truth is, I don’t want to be my dad.
But I do want to be the version of him who knew how things worked.

Instead, I’m just a guy in a cardigan watching another man stop his kitchen from falling apart while pretending I chose to delegate because I “value time.”

He left. The sink was silent. My ego was not.

I texted my dad later. Told him the sink was good.
He replied: “Nice. Did it yourself?”
I said, “Sort of.”
Which was technically true. I did open the door.