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My dad was born early enough to remember the Great Depression. Among other issues he was a borderline hoarder probably amplified by poverty on a farm where you never threw anything away because you might need it. So that meant all kinds of dissociated parts in various bins, buckets, and cans full of stuff. From pipe fittings to old nails, keys, screws and nuts, wall warts and cords, cans with more cans in them, storage containers, pieces of wood and metal…. So much stuff.
If you’ve ever spent time with a hammer straightening out old bent miscellaneous size nails rather than getting a box of uniform and proper length nails, you know the kind of person I’m talking about.
My grandfather lived through the great depression. He also had coffee cans full of nails and screws. If he had built something, but had benta nail, he would go back and straighten it and throw it in a can.
My dad was kind of a nut and built our family home. Not like, paid a company to build it, but built the whole thing, with very little help. Every once in a while my grandad would come down with a can of nails he had straightened, dad would thank him, and just add it to the collection – dad would never use a fastener that was damaged like this, but we accumulated many cans full of re-straightened nails
When I got first my own apartment, my dad gave me a big part of his screw collection. Most of them are flat heads, and I can’t recall ever using any of them. Anyway, whenever I come across a weird screw that I don’t need, I add it to the collection. I don’t plan to have kids, so probably I’ll be buried with it, as a riddle for future archeologists.
Truly a pharaonic burial
Not my dad. He’s a fisherman. Coffee cans are used to hold worms. The metal things he collects aren’t screws, but sinkers.
These things:
My parents sold their old house last year. Finding sinkers around the yard has apparently become a hobby for the new occupants. Considering these things are probably made of lead, it’s good they’ve found a way to make collecting them feel fun.
So… your father is a fishing fanatic?
ok, but how many IKEA allen keys?
You have purchased the correct amount, only going over by an amount reasonable to throw away. It’s not a flaw, its a feature
My father could never approach my collection of cables though
I’ve had unopened packets of cables become obsolete.
I still have a USB-A adapter for my OG Motorola Razr’s proprietary port (the flip phone, not the Android device). I used to install custom ringtones for free and mod the outer display to do more than just display the Motorola logo and show the camera input for selfies; I forgot exactly what the mod did, it’s been over 20 years but still I was the only one I knew who did stuff like this. Everybody else was calling the phone number in the commercials and paying 99¢ for ringtones… Suckers.
Anyway enough with this ADHD-fueled tangent; point I’m making is that surely this cable will come in handy again someday, right? Right?
Somewhere in your country there’s an avante-garde arts music collective, about to produce an orchestra, made up of 300 old Motorola Razr phones, and it would be the best performance of their lives, but they’re just lacking that one cable to make it all work.
Find them. You’re their hero.
that cable is fucking dead man. let it go.
I have a few of those. I feel bad for them. they must wonder what life could have been. One day I’ll find a peripheral that fits them and they’ll go on the adventure of a lifetime.
Instead of screws, you just have 5 bags of wires that you definitely will need some day.
You never know when you may need a VGA cable!
Literally just had to spend like $40 on the only VGA cable I could get on short notice. I used to have a box of 50+ new in package cables I got from a surplus auction for half that cost 20 years ago. Still had half or more left from old contracts. Should never have recycled those…
Keep your old cables.
I had to spend $20 on a replacement PHONE cable recently. I thought i had a couple spares, but didn’t. And nobody carries them anymore. I finally found a store a 20 minute walk away and he semsed my desperation.
My box of computer and peripheral adapters is biding its time, don’t bet against it!
Is this how a house slowly lose integrity? Because each time things get unscrewed one less screw go back in?
Don’t ever ask a mechanic about their but and bolt collection if this is the kind of thing that keeps you up at night.
It’s called a Hell box. And you never take, only add…
Not only houses.
House of Theseus
Choose to think of it as a positive; you’ve been better at making sure things are properly screwed in and aren’t ending up with vast collections of “extra” screws.
I have so many vises…
Let’s see, there’s the giant leg vise on the work bench, the big ass 5" bench/pipe vise, the two small bench vises, the workbench with the holdfasts and bench dogs…Plus the pipe clamps, and the parallel clamps, the quick grip clamps, the F clamps, the band clamps, the spring clamps, the hand screws, oh…and the drill press vise mounted to the drill press!
You can never have too much work holding!
Furniture making?
I have so many vises…
Vices*
There’s the giant leg vise
Oh what the fuck, actually vises
I mean, I have my vices as well…😁
Vises are important enough I even designed a 3D printed vise and 2 C-clamps that are clamped to the side of my office desk.
You never know when…
You haven’t screwed around enough, clearly.
My late father had one miraculous ability. There were always two pairs of rubber boots in his car trunk. No matter what. He never needed them. Always just got in the way.
I don’t have a car and I’ve used one pair of rubber boots since late 1990s. (Made by Nokia, so, you know, basically indestructible.)
Oh that reminds me I need to get new winter tires. Nokia(n) makes some of the best ones
A lot of people think there are just two types of screw - cross head and flat, but when you look deeper you see a whole world of variety: Phillips, Pozi, Robertson, Torx, Allen, etc. etc. the list goes on and each one is valid; and should be respected.
You must defeat him in a series of screw based challenges and you shall inherit the screws. It has been this way since the dawn of man.
Learned that you can go to your local screw store and buy them for pennies instead of going to Home Depot or whatever.
