Troubles With Being Troubled

It troubles me a great deal that I have spent the last month cleaning out my storage unit and moving what we wanted to keep in what is now a spare bedroom since my daughter got married and moved out. The overall goal was to eliminate 90% of the shit we had in storage, keeping only what truly necessary. I did well, I reduced a 20′ X 20′ unit, packed to the gills floor to ceiling and wall to wall to a stack 3′ deep, 7′ wide, and 7′ or so tall. Also giving plenty of room for my bowflex and Arachnid arcade coin operated bar style dart board. The intent was to keep shit handier than 5 miles away. But I’ll be damned if it hasn’t already happened, I couldn’t find one thing I kept out to assist me in hanging some new shelves I recently built.

But no, it was MIA, until after 3 hours of searching, then to find out that even with a brand spanking new battery, my fucking stud finder has taken it’s final shit. Yes, I know I could have bought one and been done in the time it took me to locate this dead one, but it was the principal of it, I had one, and I’m a cheap bastard. Hence why I’ve depended on the same one for some 15 years or so. My shit must be broken before I replace it. Only this time duct tape and bailing wire cannot make this work. So, how did I lose it to begin with? Beats the crap out of me. I went from having a well equipped woodworking shop to 2 roller/stacker craftsman toolboxes, 4 tool chests, 4 tool boxes, and three 20MM ammo cans. Now that I write that out it seems a bit excessive, but the only tools I sold during the foreclosure 7 years ago were power tools like a table saw, lathe, router set up, 2 air compressors, a handful or air tools, and my 10′ clamps. I didn’t get rid of one hand tool or smaller electric tools. What I still have is my little gold mine. Figures the one Stanley product I own is the one that took a shit.

Eventhough I know where each of my tools are located, the stud finder found its way into a box with miscalanious shit my wife wanted off the dining room table, she didn’t know it was a “tool” when it was put away. Know something else? I have quite a large collection of knives come to find out, all of them in one place now makes it look a bit excessive, just saying. But, when one downsizes and condenses one’s belongings, one finds out he has some weird collection habits. So, in the end, I was forced to do things the old fashioned way. As a result, my shelf was hung without the aid of my elusive stud finder, and now that this little project is done its time to find more trouble to play with to keep me busy. Made me wonder tho, made me think back when I was being educated, that this occasion gave me an opportunity to share my knowledge with my son. Moral to this little story is that there is always more than one way to skin the cat. Sometimes one must rely on tried and true ways instead of technology and convenience. This entire episode taught me a valuable lesson, sometimes shortcuts fail and we have to rely on experience as well as being able to adapt to a changing environment, if we don’t know more than one way to do something then we are screwed. Too deep this early in the day? Anyway, on to the next project.