Every year, when the summer sun comes out and I get the unbelievably stupid idea that I can do DIY. That I, the master of disaster, can actually take something and improve it.
It happens every year without fail. And every year I manage to fail.
I get all “Yeah! Fixing stuff!” without that memory of absolute abject failure of every previous attempt that has ended with many a trip to the emergency room. The last trip to the emergency room involved me having a large chunk of metal removed from my head. Which got in there via the process of my wife smashing my head in for being a complete imbecile.
Therefore the thought of “Lets get the extra strength no more nails out and stick wood to other pieces of wood…in the name of fixing stuff” was never going to work out well. For me. For my wife.
For my ego.
It’s was to be a simple process. Unclog the nozzle where it has dried up from the last time I used it, which was sometime in the neolithic era judging by the weird tools that were attached to it from my last attempt. Stick the glue on one piece of wood, attach it to the other piece of wood and revel in the glory of my work. Be loved by my wife for fixing stuff. Show all my friends my amazing ability and accept the glory they placed upon me.
It went well. By well I mean…
I found a screwdriver and jammed it with all my might (which is about as powerful as a 1 legged mouse doing the 100m hurdles) in to the top of the clogged up nozzle. This left the entire length of the screwdriver covered in glue. I love that screwdriver. So I felt I needed to save it. So placing down the tube, I rush to the bathroom to save my beloved screwdriver.
Naturally, the thing to do would be to use a cloth or something to wipe it off.
So. Using my fingers, I wipe the extra strength glue off of the screwdriver.
Except by “wiped off”, I actually mean “Smeared it all over the screwdriver”. And also my hand. So I ran the water in the sink. Except I used my hand that was covered in glue to turn the tap on as my other hand was holding the screwdriver.
The water was about as helpful as punching myself in the head repeatedly would be to world peace. Although the tap handle is no longer a pretty chrome colour, but is more of a smeared dirty white colour.
It was not going what you could call “swimmingly”. And now the glue was starting to dry. Rapidly.
It was at around this time I wandered in to the kitchen to ask my wife if she had any ideas. At around the same time the cat decided she wanted to say hello, so jumping to the table near me, managed to almost knock a glass of water over on to my open laptop. A little worried about this, I picked up my cat to put him on the floor.
But because I am a stupid arse, I used my glued up hand.
To the casual passing by observer, it now looked like I was trying to massage my cats testicles. This was obviously not the case…because a year before I had them chopped off, which meant for me to do that, I would be in a vet’s office with my hand in a bin full of old animal parts having a good rummage around. Yeah, it sounds appealing…but in the grand scheme of things, it was not the time or the place to go all animal porn.
Yes, my hands were now attached to my cat. In a place I would rather they weren’t.
I wont go in to the process of removing myself from the poor little guy. Use your imagination, and add in a lot of scratching, screaming and a look of total fear. Now try to imagine what the cat did too.
During all this, the tube of extra strength no more nails emptied itself on to the wooden counter and dried nicely. And it won’t come off. The screwdriver is ruined…unless I need something to unclog a tube of no more nails.
I have decided to employ a blind kleptomaniac elephant to do the rest of the DIY in the house. It sure as hell can’t go any worse.
The cat has not come near me since, and his eyes are still watering.
wheelturninghamsterdead.com 