Arizona - Land of the DIYers

I'm a fairly self-sufficient person. No, seriously, I am. I can do my own laundry, cook, clean, take care of bills, hold a steady job, and even hang pictures. All these things taught to me by my loving and patient (for the most part) parents. They also taught me that if a pipe broke or the roof leaked that I was to call a handy dandy fix it guy and pay him to fix what was wrong and that was that. No attempting to read up on how to fix it myself. No getting up on the roof and attempting to replace shingles. No getting under a sink and taking apart the plumbing. Moving to Arizona I have since learned that uttering the phrase "handy man" is the equivalent of hurting someone's personal pride. Apparently here the handy man is only used in the event that the equipment to do to the job isn't cost effective to purchase or the job is just too big to finish by yourself. 

Here's a pretty good example. The dishwasher decided that it didn't want to handle the job of washing dishes anymore and that it wanted a life of luxury, a life of just sitting there and not freaking working. My first thought "great, now a new one will have to be bought :/". Never did it enter into my mind to take the damn thing apart and see what the problem was or that it could be fixable. Imagine my surprise when I came home to find my boyfriend on the kitchen floor with dishwasher parts splayed before him. He was taking apart stuff, checking it out, testing for leaks, swearing at it. 3 days later and two trips to the hardware store, the dishwasher was fixed and forced to clean my pots and pans. 

So what's the deal? All of my LA friends (I think) think along the same lines I do: Call The Handy Man! I don't believe I was ever in a situation where someone busted out their tool chest and fixed something right there on the spot. I don't even think most of my friends had tool chests (except you, Max) or owned a basic screwdriver set. How is that almost everyone in AZ that I meet is handy? Everyone has wrenches, screwdrivers, saws, and the general know how to fix and even remodel things like bathrooms and whole rooms. Did I just miss something growing up? Did my parents just decide that they would rather take the easy route and teach me that I need to make money in order to pay people to fix things vs actually teaching me how to fix things? 

I've now learned how to install, tape, and mud drywall and various other random house repair things. How about you? Were you raised in a do it yourself household?