Ask me what type of emporium I most enjoy wandering around (but why would you?), and you would probably expect me to say “camera shop”. And you would be wrong. Camera shops are for descending upon when your latest gear lust has reached fever pitch and you walk in, buy the unnecessary gadget, and walk out again. Some enjoyment can be had in mocking the potential choices of others; “Canon 7D2? Five years of development and this is all they can come up with? Are you retarded”? But this can get you assaulted so best just to give a mocking glance and then leave.
No, for a really pleasurable browsing experience, give me a hardware shop (used to be a lingerie store, but lust changes with age). Hardware shops are stuffed full of merchandise, most of which I do not understand, but all of which I covet. Only yesterday I found myself among cement mixers (which I definitely do not have a need for) and discovered “a thing” which was not a cement mixer but looked more like a mobile pizza oven with extra slats. It’s purpose will always remain unclear, but I felt a deep yearning to own it. Fortunately, she who must be obeyed was with me and so one of her “why on earth did I marry you” looks was enough to scotch the idea when I raised it.
It is hard to engineer a trip to a hardware shop without having an excuse to go there, but fortunately I am always in need of something. Popular items include screws, rawlplugs, tape and assorted small tools. Very rarely do I need something I have not previously purchased, even rarer am I purchasing something that I bought before and consumed. I just loose stuff.
Need a screw of a certain size? I am sure I used to have some but I can’t find them so off to buy some more. While I am in the shop, let’s buy another screwdriver because I keep losing the one I have; and so on. The reason for this constant accumulation of hardware is because my storage system for these items is not a system but two boxes into which everything is thrown. Having two boxes instead of one was a stroke of genius idiocy; because raking through one box cannot ensure you will find your missing tool; it might be in the second box (or on a shelf, or on the floor, or in a sock drawer where I left it for safe keeping after some botched household project). After failing to find what I am looking for; I abandon whatever it was I was planning to do and wait for my next store visit to buy another one; by which time I will have lost interest in the project. Not much home improvement gets done in our house.
The move to our new home prompted a change. We have less storage space than in our previous abode and my sparkly new store room was soon full to the ceiling; and finding that elusive tool was as difficult as ever. Time for a fresh approach.
With a stroke of lateral thinking that I consider worthy of the Nobel prize for tools storage; I picked up some stackable plastic bins from Home Pro and migrated the mess from my black hole boxes such that each bin contained only type of tool! How revolutionary is that?! There is now a box full of spanners, a box full of Allen keys, a box full of pliers etc. So when I need a spanner, I pick up the spanner box and choose one (then find it is not available and go and buy another).
This is an excellent system; but it does reveal the true horror of some of my past practices. I haven’t dared count the Allen keys; but there must be more than a hundred. I have counted the screwdriver and there are 53….
Fifty. three. screwdrivers. That’s more than you will find in some shops (especially bakeries).
In my defense, and it is a weak defence, more than half of these are jeweller’s screwdrivers; and we all know how much they multiply when kept in a dark box. On the negative side; why do I actually need a jeweller’s screwdriver?
Still, hopefully I will never be tempted to buy another screwdriver. But I do need to pop back down to the hardware store for some more plastic bins, I need to sort the screwdrivers into separate containers. And while I am there I might pick up some more Allen keys; you never know when they might come in handy.
Comments 🔗
2014-09-24| RJM saysI know the very feeling!
2014-09-24| genuinej saysSo, you’ve finally given up wearing lingerie. About time too! (defence btw).
2014-09-24| Spike saysAmerican spellchecker didn’t pick it up…
2014-09-24| Spike saysNow regretting I didn’t title this “fifty shades of screwdriver”.
2014-09-24| Richard H saysAny Torx drivers? My car for some unfathomable reason needs a Torx to change the rear light bulbs.
2014-09-25| Grant saysOnly fifty three? Dog, I wish I could remember that far back. What with flat blade, Posidrive, Phillips, Robertson et al I’m fair drowning in the bloody things…
2014-09-25| Spike saysI have sizes 7,8 and 10; plus “Xbox 360 size”; acquired for a project to ingeniously mount my Xbox steering wheel on a frame. Naturally the project was abandoend when I mislaid the screwdriver. If I recall you can find sets of them in the malls.
2014-09-25| Spike saysI had never heard of a Robertson. After some research I think I need one. 54.
2014-09-25| genuinej saysOnly one?
2014-09-25| Grant saysNo, he’ll need at least three and extras to cover the losses…
2014-09-26| Clive saysI think that screwdrivers are probably the best example of the “N+1” problem.
It goes like this:
An engineer is making something that has a design that calls for two or more pieces to be screwed together. The engineer looks and decides that the current system of screws, bolts and assorted threaded devices is too cumbersome and unwieldy, or the standard sizes are all to thick, thin, short, or long. So in a moment of genius (not!), the engineer defines and builds a new standard…
For the last few years we’d all hoped that UNC, UNF, Metric, Whitworth, Torx, etc, would prove to be the last word in threaded connectors. Obviously we were wrong.
In his push for “pretty” designs, Jony Ive of Apple has outlawed screws, bolts and so on. He has replaced this with some fandango new technology in which the devices themselves conspire to become part case, part fixing. This has taken the old school idea of many different screwdrivers to such new heights that it can be considered an art form. So of course, others rush to follow. Except that Apple patent everything, including connection methods, so now the competition has to do something slightly different. And patent that, too… Yes, siree, folks, give it another couple of years and you’ll have to buy a unique set of tools and connectors for every different product you own. And if you make the mistake of inserting the wrong connector into the wrong hole and/or securing it with the wrong tool (insert obligatory boom-boom joke here) then an army of lawyers will pop up to sue your arse into the Stone Age…
And that’s progress, folks.
You can never have enough different standards for connectors you know. There is a desperate world shortage of new standards for all types of connectors: screws, bolts, nails, clasp, you name it. We need more variety in all types of connectors. Except nuts. Apperently, we have enough of those already.
2014-09-26| Grant saysAy oop lad! BSF were last word in threaded connectors…
2014-09-26| Spike saysTwelve comments. About screwdrivers and associated topics. I bet other blogs don’t get this; apart from FastenerFetishes.com
2014-09-26| Grant saysYou’ve touched the ‘bloke’ nerve. Most of us eventually get bored with tits and bums but there is no such thing as hardware overload, just can’t happen! The next town up from us, Ban Moh, has a huge and well established hardware shop. The front third of the cavernous premises houses the stock that is turning over and the rear two-thirds is my playground. There is stuff in there which must have been around since WW2. A simple trip to get, say, a can of paint thus takes all afternoon and the War Department has to drag me kicking and screaming out to the car where I sulk and sniff all the way home having out-tantied a sugar loaded three year old. Equilibrium is only established after the second gin & tonic…