If I had a flat, I would either have to order a new tube or ride the bike to the LBS. Hopefully I'd try the former first, but since I depend on the bike for class each day, I'm not really sure what I'd do.
With bike repair, it's baby steps. One day you get a flat, and you say, "You know what? I'm going to go buy a tube (or you were smart enough to buy one earlier--they're very cheap) and I'm gonna do this!" Then you use the tire levers and it takes you way too long, and you get dirty, but next time it goes faster. (And eventually you watch a video that tells you how to use more than one lever at a time to make it go much more smoothly!)
And then one day, you're heading off on bikes and trailers to camp overnight with two of your kids, and you realize that there are 11 tires on this trip, all depending on *you.* So you go and stand in the bike aisle at the local Bi-Mart and you say "I'm gonna buy a patch kit instead of all those different sized tubes." And it turns out you get a flat on your camp-out and you patch it and you're very very proud.
Yep, that's how it happens. Just like that.