The Proper Use of Tools

Today we will talk about using the right tool for the job. Recently I spent an entire day cleaning up water in my basement, and this concept became very clear to me.

To start that job I gathered up every towel in the house and started sopping up water. This was the wrong approach. Towels were the wrong tool for this job. Using towels required me to carry plastic trash cans full of heavy wet towels to my washer where they were run through the spin cycle and reused to soak up water. A better solution was to use my Hoover Scrub 'n Spin carpet cleaner to suck up the water. I filled up that holding tank a bunch of times. Hoover should mention this handy functionality in the manual, or maybe they already do because like you I never read the manual. So Tip #1 is "Use a carpet cleaner to suck up water on your floor."

We may be getting ahead of ourselves here. Let's go back to the reason we need Tip #1. That is because a helpful family member diverted a downspout into a window well recently so he could rake the dead grass out of our lawn in preparation for Spring. He just moved the round black plastic downspout extension from where it extended to the middle of the yard, sticking it down that window well to get it out of the way. Totally understandable. He forgot to put it back in the grass, maybe because it was 70 degrees outside that day and seemed like the winter snow 'n melt season was over. He was SO wrong. Since we already have Tip #1, let's call this Tip #0. Tip #0 is "Don't alter drainage in your yard."

But even Tip #0 has a predecessor. The reason there was a black downspout extension in the yard is there was so much heavy snow during the winter that would melt and refreeze. The weight of the snow and ice on the downspouts, not to mention the expansion of the ice when it froze, caused the downspouts to pull away from the rain gutters and to become dislodged from their extensions at the bottom that are buried in the ground and lead to the street. Every time there was a semi-warm day the snow would melt a little and torrents of water would plunge out of the downspout-less holes in the gutters. That was causing small ponds of water by the foundation. So Tip # -1 "Is secure your gutters and downspouts even if you need to (heaven forbid) hire a professional to do the work."

Wow. We are moving backwards in this tool usage discussion. We are making about as much progress as a bill through Congress. Let's pretend there has been a spate of congressional hearings on gutters and downspouts and all the previous discussions have been promoted to Cabinet-level positions, and start again. Synonyms for “spate” are “plague” or “Congress.”We could also be awed imagining there has been a spate of congressional pontificating about spate, which is defined by Google dictionary as “a sudden flood in a river, especially one caused by heavy rains or melting snow.” Coincidence? I think not.

After Tip #1 above I wanted the wet carpet to dry out, so I pulled it up, draped it over some plastic trash cans and turned a fan on in that room. Then I noticed a little area of wet carpet under the stairs. That's a carpeted play area for kids to hide out. Again I sucked out any water I could with the carpet cleaner. When I tried to pull up the carpet I couldn't get my fingers under the edge of the carpet. This was where the sloping ceiling below the stairs meets the floor. I knew I need a tool to help me. What would a carpet professional use? What would a chimpanzee use? What could I use?

When I was growing up we were taught to be resourceful and never give up; consequently I won't stop working on a problem until I have made the problem much worse than it was when it started out. What I needed was a handle with a hook on the end of it. I don't crochet, so that was out. I rifled through the utensil drawer, and the junk drawer. I found a big meat fork that might work. In the computer desk drawer I found a bunch of those gray metal face plates that had been removed from my desktop computer when I installed CD and DVD drives. Not sure why I saved those (kind of like saving that Mexican medication) but their L-shape might serve as a hook. I thought about looking in the tool chest in the garage, but thought "who needs that bother." So, armed with a fork and a face plate I went to work trying to pull up the edge of the
carpet under the 15 degree ceiling. The fork was useless, but face plate worked! Tip #2 is "Whatever works is the right tool for the job." Who says females don't have good spacial relationship judgment?

Tip #3 is "Don't share your tool successes with people who don't appreciate creative thinking." My husband locks his tool box from me, but then doesn't appreciate it when I find a way to pull up the carpet, or hang a picture or tighten a screw, without bothering him. Recently I locked up his TV remote. I wonder if he will be as resourceful in solving that problem as I was when I hung our Christmas lights with a pitchfork.