How many wrench sets can one person possibly need? Why keep 200 rusty nails when you have 8000 nails that aren’t rusty? Is it a good idea to keep your safety glasses in the middle of the floor? These are the unusual questions I found myself asking during my most recent travels.
Steve and I and my sister, Deb, went to southern Georgia to visit my dad and stepmom, Patty, who’ve spent the last year or two building a new home. This was our first chance to visit since they moved in, and we found the house to be beautiful, with an open floor plan, high ceilings and lots of windows. The furniture is in place, so it’s already very livable, but they’ve still got lots of loose ends to tie up before they’re really settled, so the three of us went to lend a hand, along with our cousin, Kerry, who drove down from Tennessee.
Steve found his niche immediately — in front of the TV. And, no, that’s not a wisecrack on my part. I’m not saying he started watching TV, but rather he helped Dad and Patty navigate the intricacies of 21st century entertainment. He showed them how to access streaming services they were already paying for, how to control their TV with just one remote, etc. This was right up his alley; because he loves to watch TV, he can’t stand the thoughts of someone else not being able to. When we’re home, he frequently fields calls from friends and family who need him to help them figure out how to “get the game” on Saturday.
Kerry’s assignment had something to do with some of the indoor electrical outlets; honestly, I’m not sure exactly what he was doing, but he appeared to be competent and confident, so
The first project Deb and I tackled was the laundry room. This was really the only area in the house Patty hadn’t had time to set up properly, and one of the things holding her back was a lack of shelving. We quickly solved that problem by going to Sam’s and buying two shelving units. When we returned home, Patty busied herself in the kitchen, giving Deb and me (and Steve, who by this time, had the TV situation under control), free rein to do as we saw fit. We assembled the shelves, organized all laundry and cleaning supplies, as well as the larger kitchen items that were to be stored there. Mission accomplished.
Our third major task — and this one was a doozie — was helping Dad start to organize his shop. You know the saying, “It looks like it was hit by a tornado”? Well, Dad’s shop looked like it had been hit by a tornado and then a hurricane and then an earthquake…and then another tornado.
Now, I want to say up front that I’m pretty sure Dad didn’t want help with the shop — but since its considerable contents were spilling out of its confines, into and onto other areas around the house, it landed on our punch list.
The first problem we encountered was really a matter of semantics. Deb and I defined a lot of the stuff that was strewn about as, well, junk. Trash. Dad disagreed. For example, amongst all the stuff on the floor, I plucked some sort of small, black, tool-belt-like pouch off the floor; it wasn’t attached to a belt, and it had a hole in the bottom and dirt and footprints on the front.
“Can this be thrown away?” I asked Dad. “It has a hole in it.”
“The hole’s supposed to be there,” he said, mumbling something about some specific tool that occupied that spot.
“Well, it obviously hasn’t been used in a long time. Why not throw it away?”
Dad reluctantly agreed, and even as I dropped it into the trash can I knew it wouldn’t stay there. Sure enough, by the time we returned the next morning, it had been removed from the trash (something that was extremely easy to ascertain, as very little went into the trash) and it had been deposited onto a different area of the floor. So much for throwing anything away.
Next, it was on to the great wrench-hunt. Dad has several wrench sets, two of which were stretched out across a set of shelves, where it was easy to see that several were missing from each set. We were tasked with trying to find the missing wrenches, resulting in a rollercoaster of emotions, from elation each time a wrench was located, to dejection when that wrench ended up belonging to some other set, apparently hidden somewhere and waiting to be discovered. We never found any of the wrenches we were specifically looking for.
And so it went. After a short time spent aimlessly raking through items that, in many cases, we struggled to identify, we settled on just grouping together any objects that resembled one another or that seemed to be related. We filled a large plastic container with painting supplies. We piled assorted drill bits on one area of a table; on another area, we collected strips of staples and put them beside what we hoped was a staple gun. We stuffed one drawer with a massive collection of work gloves, many in their original packaging.
And nails. Loose nails. Full boxes of nails. Rusted nails. Shiny nails. Short nails. Long nails. If I had a nickel for every nail I touched that day, I wouldn’t be writing this column now, because I’d be way too busy decorating my new cabin in the mountains. And, by the way, I’d know where to find all the nails necessary to build that cabin.
In the end, the general atmosphere of the shop remained unchanged — disaster zone — yet I like to think there was a smidgen of hope among all the groupings of nails and nuts and washers and widgets. And next time we visit, I’ll be looking to see if Dad’s actually using that black, tool-belty thing I almost succeeded in throwing away.
