Anybody even slightly interested in DIY projects will know there are many more variants of screws than there are of the dreaded coronavirus.
We hear of new corona variants being discovered about once a week, but different variants of screws have been produced almost daily since before Mr Black even met Mr Decker.
Take a stroll to your local hardware shop and have a look around their screw department if you don’t believe me.
You will see every size of wood screw, a huge range of screws for fastening chipboard, screws for attaching fittings to masonry walls, screws for plastic, screws for metal, screws for fixing bulldozers and screws for mending watches. The variety is almost infinite.
And each one comes in 47 different sizes. The problem, for a do-it-yourselfer, is that you never have the exact type and size in your toolkit for the particular job you happen to be doing at the moment. Not a major problem.
You trot down to the hardware store and ask for a 23mm size 3 jet-in screw with a Philips head and the assistant hands a box of 50 of them, which you carry home in triumph.
You use two of them to complete your project and the other 48 screws in the box get dropped into the toolbox along with the 40 stainless steel 36mm screws left over from last week’s garden gate repair.
There are also several dozen almostfull screw boxes from previous projects too numerous to mention.
As the years pass by the tool cupboard becomes clogged with hundreds of boxes, bottles and jars, each containing a small number of unique screws whose original purpose has been long forgotten.
Last week, I needed to attach an electric cable to the wall and after a quick look over my screw collection I shrugged and headed of once again to the hardware store.
One day when I shuffle off this mortal overall, some unfortunate person trying to clear the remaining mess, will stare into my tool cupboard and exclaim in astonishment: “Wow! He certainly was an enthusiastic screwer!”
Considering the sad state of the modern world, I suppose I can think of worse epitaphs.
Last Laugh
The young wife came home from the maternity home with her new baby and was soon involved in all the chores involved in baby care. The father looked on nervously. Eventually the mum asked her husband, “Why don’t you change the baby’s nappy for a change? “
“I’ll change the next one,” he said. The next time baby needed changing the wife said: “Here you are, you said you’d change the next one.”
“Oh no,“ he said, backing away. “I meant the next baby.”
* "Tavern of the Seas" is a column written in the Cape Argus by David Biggs. Biggs can be contacted at [email protected]
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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