Ever feel like the Internet has become void of significant social dialog?

That would be because you are correct. And by “the Internet” I mean “Facebook.”

It’s not so much a social networking site as it is a tool built for pushing (and absorbing) corporate media.

My friend’s husband Paul came over to cut down trees in the woods behind our house. He arrived with a gas-powered chainsaw, an electric chainsaw, soundproofing earmuffs and protective eyeglasses. My husband, misty-eyed, watched him unload his Jeep. Then they shared a manly handshake.

“I want to get rid of that one, those two over there, and that big one over there is dead, so let’s take it down, too,” I said to Paul.

“C’mon, Rick,” Paul said, slapping him on the back. “Give me a hand.”

As the men scrambled down the hill into the woods, I was secretly glad it was someone else’s husband who would be doing the dangerous work. But I wondered whether Ricky had been harboring resentment: I had refused to let him get a chainsaw or any other power tool that can chew a hand like a hungry bear.

When Ricky moved into my Upper West Side apartment 10 years ago, he had old-school hand tools: augers, planes, gimlets, awls, spokeshaves — nothing that needed gas or electricity. We kept them in the trunk of our car because there was no place inside to store them safely — and because no torture museum was in the market for artifacts. I used to say that one day a sheriff was going to stop us and ask, “Sir, can you open the trunk?” and we’d be detained for hours.

“Why don’t you get rid of these old tools?” I’d ask.

“Because one day I’m going to build something using hand tools,” he’d promise.

When we moved to Rockland County, Ricky got a shed to store his hand tools, but he insisted we needed an all-in-one Black and Decker battery-operated drill driver for our 150-year-old house.

“You can’t call the super every time something breaks,” he said.

Over the years, my husband has come to the rescue more times than I can remember, tightening towel rods, fixing cabinets. He crafted shutters, built planting boxes and framed a patio.

Until I married Ricky, the men I knew, my father included, hired other men to cut, drill and fix stuff. I had at first assumed my husband, who grew up in urban Canarsie like me, descended from similar stock. But his late father was a power-tool dealer who brought every newfangled gadget to their weekend Catskill house. Ricky’s boyhood toys were drills, saws, tractors and Sawzalls. He learned to fell a tree when he was 12.

It’s comforting to live with a man who knows his way around a toolbox. It’s even sexy, so long as he’s not in danger of getting mangled or disfigured.

Three years ago, Ricky wondered if I would consider buying him a stationary table saw for his birthday.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“A flat table with a blade underneath it,” he explained. “You turn a crank and the blade rises from the table.”

The only thing rising at that moment was my lunch.

“Why do you need that?”

“I’m thinking about building a greenhouse.”

The following weekend when we went to look at the contraption, I turned white.

“I guess you’re not too comfortable with this?” he asked. We didn’t buy one.

Weeks later, we were with our friend Peter. I noticed horrific scarring on his hand.

“I severed my hand using a table saw,” he said.

I shot Ricky a look. Even he looked a bit queasy when Peter explained how the paramedics brought his thumb on ice to the ER so it could be reattached.

Father’s Day is around the corner. I asked him what he wanted. He said a slick.

“It’s a chisel with a blade you use for post and beam construction,” he explained. “I’m going to build a timber-frame studio the old-fashioned way, using hand tools.”

I can live with that.

I seem to be carrying on the family tradition of tool-wielding women, albeit reluctantly.  My mother has long been gifted every Christmas with an addition to her tool set and although I am all for self-sufficiency and stepping outside traditional roles, the call of the tool belt never quite reached me.  It is, however, being forced upon me these days as drippy faucets and non-functional washing machines pervade my world and I have now come to know the inside of the Bauhaus the way I used to know Sephora.

My sister is one of The Order.  She practically came out of the womb with a penknife in her hand ready to jump into home improvement at a moment’s notice.  She is one of those people with spatial relation skills.  You know the type; organized closets, a place for everything, and everything in its place.  She knows what all the gadgets in her toolbox are called and more, how to use them.  I don’t think she relies on her superintendent for much of anything since it’s just oh, so much easier to do it herself.  I, on the other hand, know intimate family details about my New York super.  He was a staple in my life. I can’t tell you how much I miss him.

Since moving to Germany, I have learned that a super here isn’t really the apartment renter’s best friend.  You don’t tip them and they don’t fix minor problems.  Okay, if the ceiling falls in they’ll come but anything up to that you’re on your own.  In addition, a common clause in a lease states that the renter is responsible for some kind of home improvement after three years of inhabitance.  This makes no sense to me at all.  I pay you money to live in the place that you own.  You pocket it and pay a maintenance dude to sweep the hallway once a week.  And after three years, I am supposed remodel the kitchen?  Are you high?  If I wanted to that, I would have bought a house; hence the convenience of renting.  How did that get missed over here?

A few years back my father gifted me and my sister with lady’s tool kits.  They came in pink, plastic cases and have pink hand grips.  This, from the enlightened man that gave his wife a chainsaw for their anniversary.  Regardless, the pink tool kit sits in my New York apartment closet gathering dust, which, until now, was exactly where I thought it belonged.  Sadly, however, I find myself of late with a wrench in my right hand and some sort of plumbing in my left.  I am now able to name all the tools in that box and bemoaning the fact that they aren’t here.  Only a few short months ago I couldn’t have told you what a washer was.  Now I can tell you what aisle they’re in and how many sizes are available.  I miss high heels and eyeliner but in this new city, I need a socket wrench more often. I find that extremely disturbing.

Annoyingly, the other most prominent trait of the McGrath women is to make lemonade out of lemons.  We can be awfully perky at times.  In this instance I’ve followed in my mother’s footsteps one more time and decided to call this a “learning experience.”  That sounds nice, doesn’t it?  But I always like to dress for the occasion, so I find myself pushing back the urge to don overalls and head to the salon for a mullet make-over.  I need my pink tools to keep my sense of femininity about this, damn it!  Dad was right about that.  Does Manolo Blahnik do steel-toed work boots?  God, I hope so.