Tools are to men like shoes are to women. They covet them, go to great lengths to procure and store them, and trot them out and impress with them any chance they get. Give a man an implement he can pound, screw, drill, cut, pry, ply, paint, sand, bolt, blast, glue, caulk, chisel, or chop with and he will be in bliss.

Having recently bought a place of my own, I am learning about tools. For the first time, I have a home that is mine all mine, so I can choose the décor, change the colours, and do whatever I want with it — but I also have to keep the place in functioning order.

In my mind, tools always belonged in that elusive realm of men, but one of the fun, fearless females in my life thought I should enable myself and create my own handywoman destiny, so she presented me with a screwdriver as a housewarming gift. This was not just any screwdriver. It was compact and pretty and had all kinds of attachments to ensure I was armed and ready for any fix-it-up occasion.

I was skeptical at first, but it’s proven to be totally useful. Within days of getting it, I’d used the screwdriver to bash open the lid on a jar of jam, and to extricate the last bits of wax and wick from the bottom of a deep candleholder.

The thing is, it takes a little know-how to figure out how to use these gadgets, and I’m getting there. Slowly but surely I’m figuring out how the right tools of the trade are necessary to ensure happy home ownership. For example, I learned — swiftly, unexpectedly, painfully — that a shoe rack does not a footstool make. Yes, it once held 10 pairs of shoes, it was conveniently stashed in the storage room right under the high cupboard I was trying to get into, and it was sturdy enough to hold the vacuum that had been placed on top of it, but adding a person to the mix proved a bit much for the poor thing, which — when asked to perform a task it wasn’t meant to do — spontaneously pulverized and rendered me black and blue and shoe rackless.

Plastic footstool at the local store? $14.99.

Maintaining your dignity and avoiding whiplash of the entire body? Priceless.

But until I master my new implements, I will continue to employ the best tool I know: the ability to coax someone else over to fix things. And that someone is usually a man. Why? Because they are good at it, and they like it.

Honestly, the best way to entice a man over is not to offer him a romantic home-cooked meal, or to promise him a back rub while he’s watching football on the big screen TV and drinking beer. The most effective way to get his attention is to say you need something fixed up, put together, or reconfigured. Be it furniture, electronic, or appliance, whether it‘s made of wood or wires, he will jump at the opportunity.

Even as he asks, “How many pieces are there? You did what to it? What kind of a noise is it making?” he will already be contemplating the tools he will need, the time it will take, and the number of trips to the hardware store the task will require.

In the end, he’s the handyman, you’re the happy woman, and the stuff is fixed. It’s a match made in hardware heaven.