I also use a method like the one that George Shearston suggested above, though mine is designed as a package module that is a bit more general-purpose -- you can find it here.

My motivation was the same as yours. The DBI calls are many and varied and sometimes bulky, and the DBI manual is awfully long reading, so I just wanted my own "wrapper" module that would have a handful of always-useful, always compact methods, whose names and args are easy to remember. I seldom/never need more than what the wrapper provides, and hardly ever need to look back at the DBI man page anymore...