Make Tool. Blog About It

Man is a tool-making and tool-using animal. I made and used a tool to solve a sink problem.

So I'm washing dishes. A closed glass jar goes flying down the drain in a wave of water. The jar barely fits the drain and I cannot grip the jar to lift it out past the rubber lips of the disposal. I failed.

I cursed and considered flinging poo to express my displeasure.

I even considered just breaking the jar. But remembering how long it took me to fish glass out of the stupid thing when a drinking glass fell in and shattered dissuaded me from that course. The Jar had to come out. But how?

Then I remembered that I am a man. I can solve this.

So I took two forks and attempted to lift the jar from either side using the curve of the tines to get under the jar. I lifted it, but the rubber lips blocked my ability to lift it higher.

Failure number two.

It was time for a real tool. I plugged in the glue gun and cut a length of cardboard, bending the end. While the glue gun warmed up, I tried a back-up plan--gorilla tape.

But the jar was wet and even though I swabbed the metal jar top with a paper towel, I could not get it dry enough for the gorilla tape to allow me to lift the jar.

Failure number three--but that was my interim attempt while the glue gun got hot. Call my grade incomplete, eh?

With the glue gun fired up, I spread a glop of hot glue on the small folded over part of the Lifting Tool and pressed it to the lid of the jar. I held it down for a couple seconds, and then smoothly lifted the jar out of the drain.

Success!

I then threw the evil jar into the trash where it will never torment me again.

This my friends, is why we're on the top of the food chain. Well, that, opposable thumbs, and a mindless adherence to tradition (I think that's actually a line from the sitcom Taxi).

Actually, the jar was in the sink because I had examined the jar on a bottom shelf and determined that I had no idea what the brownish powder in it was. It didn't have any particular smell, so I had no clue. But it was something I thought I'd want to eat some day. But I had no idea what it was so dumped the powder down the sink and figured I'd wash the jar and re-use it.

As a man, my real lesson from this near-fiasco is that I should leave stuff in the refrigerator alone. If I don't bother it, it won't fall in my sink and threaten to steal hours of my time trying to recover from the fail.

Isn't blogging fascinating?