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SHEARON: Put down the tool and back away |
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Tuesday, 30 October 2007 |
 There should probably be a law that I not be able to handle tools around automobiles. Over the years I’ve worked on cars that I’ve owned, and “fixed” them to the point where they no longer ran. Maybe I’m more of a grease chimp than a grease monkey.
I have steadfastly refused to take a wrench to the cars my wife had when we got married seven years ago. They both still run like new. It’s amazing.
Still, I thought there couldn’t be much harm in just putting a new license plate on my new-to-me 1987 pickup.
I have lots of neat tools. I bought them to work on my motorcycle. I can work on motorcycles for some strange reason.
Anyway, I got out this massive phillips-head screwdriver and went at the screws holding the plate on. One loosened but wouldn’t come off. The other wouldn’t turn at all.
OK, obviously more tools were needed. I got out my metric wrenches, found that an 11 mm was the correct size for holding the nuts on the back side of the license plate and went at it again.
I got the left screw out.
The right screw loosened part of the way, then stopped.
I doused it with WD40.
No luck.
More tools.
I got out my channel locks and some scissor-action needle-nosed pliers. I grabbed the nut with one and the screw with the other and gave a mighty heave. The channel-locks slipped off the screw and cracked one of my fingernails down into the quick. Ouch.
More tools were obviously called for.
I got out the hacksaw and tried to saw the head of the screw off. The angle wasn’t good.
More tools.
I got out my drill. I decided I could drill the head of the screw off.
Nope.
I sat there in the driveway surrounded by tools. My neighbor, Ed Bush, asked if I’d managed to break my new truck. “Not yet.”
Obviously more tools were needed, but which ones?
I walked into my tool room and stood there, hoping for divine guidance. I got it. Over in the corner, hanging on a peg (the rest of my tools are stacked in jumble on a shelf) was a bolt cutter. This is one of the tools my wife bought at a yard sale for 50 cents.
I lifted it off the peg and walked back to the truck.
I slipped the jaws of the cutter underneath the screw head and pushed the handles together. The head stayed on, but I had a little more room to work. I pushed the cutting jaws a little farther up, pushed the handles again — and the screw head still stayed on. I pushed the jaws up as far as they could go, squeezed, and the head stayed steadfastly in place. Leaving the jaws closed, I pulled the handles toward me — and the screw snapped. Mission accomplished. Only took two hours.
I’ve got a three-day weekend coming up. I’m hoping to put in a new radio. I’m beginning to wonder if three days will be enough.
Robert Shearon is news editor of the Courier. His column appears weekly.
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