Hammers and Light Bulbs

My husband had the tool kit out because he was installing a shelf for our son. I noticed (because oh boy, I am forever noticing things) that it was stuffed to the gills. Just overflowing with..with…with what?

I start pulling everything out. Do we need five hammers? Twelve pliers? We have fourteen tiny eye glass screw drivers. How am I under the impression we had none? More importantly, why are there lightbulbs here? With the hammers? Why are the lightbulbs and hammers being stored together? That’s like storing the raw hamburger meat inside the milk cartoon with the milk. Or housing the puppies with the tigers.

This is what happens when you aren’t vigilante. You make money, nurture a child, show up for a friend and boom! The hammers and lightbulbs are cohabitating. Where are my priorities?

So I said to husband, let’s spend an hour tomorrow morning fixing this. Oh, my bad, I meant all day. Just the length of time it takes to sort 400 screws in 25 varieties abiding in 20 different locations. Did you have other plans?

In a world where this was my only domain, I’d ace it. I’d be a sexy comforting one-woman home depot. Imagine I live in the closet. Husband opens the door. Hey hon, can you hand me a 9 x 2 in. Star Drive Round Head? Here ya go big boy! Thanks so much for fixing the garage door! I love you!

I can do anything if only I can just stay focused on it. But nobody has time to babysit screws and so they propagate wildly and invade the storage area like kudzu. There is no where they don’t go.

A few other observations. The toolbox, which is used every single week, was relegated to the worst possible closet real estate, literally behind a big plastic drawer that holds batteries, tape and crepe streamers. What do you think is used more often, screwdrivers or birthday streamers? You said streamers, us too, let’s give those the CEO parking space. The tools can hoof it to the bottom of the ten-level parking garage.

The final WTF was a box of DVD backups from 2005 that were easier to access than the tools. Who negotiated their primo lease? What even is a DVD backup? Oh yes, it’s coming to me. You burn files onto them like a mini hard drive so that if your computer dies you still have this valuable information. What is the valuable information that is easier to access than the vacuum cleaner attachments? Deliverables from a job I did 14 years ago? Yeah, that makes sense.

I shared these thoughts with husband and he reminded me how we came to have so many hammers. On a dog walk he came across a bag of hammers. You know the proverbial “dumb as a bag of hammers”. That kind of bag of hammers. Seven identical hammers in a thin plastic shopping bag. What’s the story there? I can’t even begin. You know what’s dumb as a bag of hammers, picking it up, bringing it home and putting it in the toolbox.

To fix something this fakakta you have to start completely over. Everything has to come out, be handled and considered. It’s a royal pain in the ass. Makes you doubt everything you believe in. But when it’s done! Ahh, you can hear the angels sing and the glory lasts. For at least a month or two. Until someone doesn’t put a screw away.