Regular readers might recall that Mr. Wonderful finally caved to pressure and gave me my very own battery-operated drill for Christmas. This was a thrilling development that only took three decades to come to fruition.
He’s not a control freak, mind you; he just has a healthy sense of self-preservation. I used to borrow his drill fairly frequently. What this means is, I would ask for his drill and he would show up and drill things FOR me. Me wandering the house with a tape measure, a hammer or any indication I might need his drill is basically a bat signal that tells him to act now or risk losing a wall.
It is alleged that my hobbies include making unnecessary holes in walls repeatedly. This is not without merit, I absolutely do enjoy this. How am I supposed to know if a picture is straight or crooked if I haven’t made at least a half dozen holes in the wall in order to hang and test them out?
My method is tried and true. Pound a nail, hang art, decide it doesn’t “look right,” repeat until it does. I don’t see what the problem is. We own the wall and if anyone has a right to put a hole in it, it’s me right? I mean, if I start putting holes in YOUR wall then I can see the issue.
My amazing methods aside, you can see why Mr. Wonderful was more than a little reluctant to give me more powerful mayhem-making abilities. As it is, I suspect he keeps giving me itty bitty nails that hold nothing and aren’t visible to the naked eye on purpose, but I digress. Do you know how many nails I have to drive into the plaster when they are so tiny?
Imagine my surprise to open my brand new drill on Christmas morning. A drill just for me? I practically heard angels singing! It came with a bag, a battery, a charger and one drill bit. What it didn’t come with was screws. Obviously, I don’t need 1,000 drywall screws in the jumbo container but a few would be nice. How am I supposed to use my shiny new drill without something to drill INTO the wall?
Therein lies his genius. He did not supply fasteners directly, and he knows I cannot actually locate anything in his barn, HE can, I never can. I think his entire organizational premise, to use the term loosely, is “how can I prevent my wife from ever finding things?” To his credit, he is wildly successful at it.
Found
So what’s a girl who wants to make more holes in the wall to do? What I can do is take advantage of the way he leaves things laying all over the place. He puts things in his pockets then empties said pockets, or not, all throughout the house. Sinks, tables and the washing machine are all receptacles for loose change, various small objects and screws. In light of this, I’ve basically become a squirrel. When I see a few good screws or particularly nice fasteners left unattended, I scoop them up and spirit them away to my own container in my drill bag. I have quite a collection now, shhh don’t tell.
Look, he knows the drill. He GAVE me the drill. He deserves whatever comes next. For a smart guy who should know better than to give me my own tools is really a travesty. He is a wise man. He knows I will find things. This will lead to ideas. Ideas lead to projects. Projects will commence until we are down to brick, studs and raw nerves, particularly now that I have my very own drill and, as we all know, more than a few screws loose.
