fiogf49gjkf0d
Wednesday, November 19, 2014Good morning crew,
Last weekend I was employing my new power drill to screw my fireplace mantel into the wall. Whatever chucklehead installed the thing in the first place apparently glued the pieces on there because the whole thing was about as stable as a house of cards.
There I was, on my very first screw, drilling away merrily, when the screw got stuck in the wood half-way in (despite my having drilled a pilot hole). Not being one to over-think a problem I simply put my shoulder into the drill, leaned all my weight on it and pulled the trigger, quickly and effectively stripping the head of the screw into a perfectly smooth bowl.
So what to do? There are tools for removing a stripped screw, none of which I own, so I opted for the simplest solution; I got out a pair of pliers, clamped down on the head of the screw as hard as I could, and veins bulging and eyes boggling, I attempted to turn it out manually.
After about two minutes of herculean effort I realized I had accomplished exactly nothing.
While I stood there, contemplating ways to hammer the head flat or possibly saw it off and drill it out, the wife called her father.
"Dad," I heard her say, "do you know how to remove a stripped screw?"
I couldn't hear the other half of the conversation, but she relayed the instructions; "He says take the bit out of the chuck, tighten the chuck on the screw head and put the drill in reverse."
"That's never going to work," I said as I goofed with the drill. "The screw head is just going to..." but my retort was cut short as the drill immediately and easily turned the screw out with an ear-piercing squeal.
"Well I'll be a son-of-a..." I muttered to myself. If I sat and stared at that screw for a solid 24 hours I probably wouldn't have come up with that solution.
There's no substitute for experience.
Laugh it up,
Joe
joe@gophercentral.comP.S. Did you miss an issue? You can read every issue from the Gophercentral library of newsletters on our exhaustive archives page. Thousands of issues, all of your favorite publications in chronological order. You can read AND comment. Just click
GopherArchives***"A new book claims that Jesus had a wife and two kids. In other words, he suffered even more than we thought." -Conan O'Brien
***"Scientists discovered a virus that makes you dumb. You get the virus from eating green algae. That will cause the dumb virus to kick in. And I'm thinking: Seriously, you're eating green algae? I mean, you're already dumb." -Dave Letterman
***"A teenager in Arkansas was arrested after he was caught driving without a license on his way to the DMV to take a driving test, tried to flee, and crashed into a police car. On the plus side, it sounds like he was probably going to fail anyway." -Seth Meyers
***My husband is a service technician for an exterminating company. And one of the rules is that he must confirm his appointments by phone the night before a service call.
One evening, he called a customer and said to the man who answered, "Hi. This is Garry from the pest-control company. Your wife phoned us."
There was silence for a moment, and then my husband heard the man say, "Honey, someone wants to speak to you about your relatives."
*-------------- Guaranteed to Roll Your Eyes --------------*A young Jewish lad entered Notre Dame to play football. At the end of the season, he returned home. As luck would have it, he ran into his Rabbi at the airport.
The rabbi asked, "Are they trying to convert you at South Bend?"
The youngster said, "Of course not, Father!"