Screwed

Screwed?

Mrs. C does not like me to do home renovation projects.  The simplest of fixit projects gives her agita.  If I try and just tighten a screw to eliminate a squeak she panics.

It turns out that there have been male figures in her life who took simple projects and turned them into disasters.  

"When I see you with any tool, I get flashbacks!"

I told her,

“Just start with the premise that I am not a complete moron!”

In actuality, when it comes to using tools and doing projects, I am not very far above the moron line.

I've learned that it is best to only work on projects when Mrs. C is not around.  What she does not see me do cannot freak her out.  Meanwhile I am extra careful to not mess anything up for fear she will hide my tools under a kitchen towel.  https://joeh-crankyoldman.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-cover-up.html 

I have been deliberating a project lately.  Our front entrance has a storm door.  Our actual door offers excellent insulation and I deemed the storm door does little in terms of keeping heat in and cold out.

We recently installed one of those “Ring” security camera things.  It was blocked by the storm door window.  It turns out that the camera is heat activated and with the storm door in place the camera was virtually worthless.

We took out the window and put in a screen.  This allowed the camera to activate, but at night the screen diffused the light such that the camera was worthless at night.  I decided to remove the storm door altogether.

I waited until Mrs. C left for work.  I made sure to store all the pieces such that if Mrs. C was not happy, I could easily reinstall the door.  If she is happy with the change, I will wood putty all the screw holes and slap some paint on the frame and all will be fine in Cranky land.  If she is not happy I can undo the project in about 20 minutes.

The removal resulted in several pieces that I carefully stored in one place in the garage.  As I was disassembling the door I carefully saved every screw in my coat pocket.  My plan was to put all the screws in a small cup, cover the cup with duct tape and save the cup with all the other parts.

Storing all the parts neatly in the garage took about ten minutes of careful planning.  My worst fear was if Mrs. C wanted me to reinstall the door that I would lose any parts.

An “I told you so” is a powerful deterrent to carelessness.

When all the pieces were stored, I found a small cup and reached into my pocket for all the screws.

NOTHING!

WTF!!

The screws could not have fallen out, not all of them.  I searched my every step looking for the screws.  They were gone.  I had not left the house, I was only in a few rooms plus the garage, they had to be somewhere.  I retraced my steps several times…NOTHING.  I searched places I had not even been…NOTHING!

Now I could replace the screws if needed.  They are cheap, but there were several different sizes, plus if Mrs. C knew I lost them she would never trust me again to do any project.  I would be banned from using any tool other than a bottle opener, maybe even a bottle opener.

I was in total panic mode.  No way I could have lost the screws.  I clearly planned to put them in a cup after I put everything else away.  Certainly I would remember taking them out.

After about an hour I gave up.  Maybe I would get lucky and Mrs. C would not want the storm door put back.  No reason to tell her I lost all the screws.

Then as I was putting away some duct tape I had used to secure some pieces together for storage, I remembered…I put the screws in a plastic sandwich bag instead of a cup and taped them up with the other parts so they would be sure to never be lost.

Do not tell Mrs. C.