Is it just me? (long)

Re: Is it just me? (long)

Mike G.

>Have you looked behind the woodpile? Every once in a while, I'll clean up my small shop and be amazed at the stuff I find. I've also got a storage building on our property where we stored a bunch of stuff. I've been over there cleaning up and reorganizing and found things I forgot about having. There's also the attic, too. You might have put some items in a box and inadvertantly stored it away or trashed it or even donated it to the local church bazaar?

Mike G.

Re: Is it just me? (long)

Victor Parisian

>I can relate. Around my home and office it is the black hole that gobbles things up never to be seen again (except when swmbo asks "What is this thing doing in the bathroom?").

Somewhere in a parallel universe there must be a woodworker that has things pop into his shop unexpectedly. Maybe they just fall through his ceiling. Or appear on his toilet tank lid.

I've got to find that worm hole and plug it.

Re: Is it just me? (long)

Joe Rogers, Northern Virginia

>Or find a way to move there and benefit from the supernatural transfers:-)JR

Re: Is it just me? (long) *LINK*

walt quadrato

>Dave,

With me it's more a memory thing (talk about very senior moments)..I just know I had that XXX..just can't remember where I put it. I have boxes of "stuff" under every bench..on 2 walls of shelving...up in the rafters (tend to never look there)Face it..most of us old tool guys or galoots were, are and ever will be packrats. I've never misplaced a #2c...but for a time I couldn't find a sargent #407...turned up under some scrap wood...about the right height for my 9 year old grandson...HHHHuuuummmmm?. I can't tell you how many times I've re-bought hardware for projects because I just couldn't put my hands on the stuff I know I have kicking around. What I really hate is when you've just had something in your hand not 20 minutes before...and still don't know where you put it down

If I may ask..and if I'm prying please disregard..was the divorce amicable? my first wife threw away some of my things before we parted..didn't realize until months later.

just throwing it out there..don't want to cause waves.

Still would like to know what happened to 3 boxes of NIB old Nicholson files I bought last summer at a flea...don't think I left them on the roof of the truck when I drove away.....but then again.......

walt q


tools & music

Me too--and too long.

Alan Hamilton

>David,

Nope. It's not just you.

Losing tools is the reason I instituted a "no loan" policy. It's absolute, for every tool no matter how cheap or insignificant, and there are no exceptions. This has strained various associations; but I noticed that those who are most upset are those who have lost, or failed to return, my tools.

Unfortunately my policy has not kept me from losing tools. A few years ago I was caught without a home in a coast to coast move. A very good friend came to my rescue. She let me move all my stuff into a house she owns that was unoccupied (actually, the deal was that I would move into her house. It's a very nice place too. Swiming pool, Jacuzzi, etc.) With all my tools in her garage--and all my furniture in the house--a family member got me to live with them. I'm sure you know the rest of the story; but if not:

When I went to move my things I found all my tool chests had been opened, many tools had obviously been used, and several were missing. It seems she had several tradesmen doing quite a bit of work, and apparently one or more made use of the circumstances and adopted several hundred dollars worth--including a complete Stanley #45 with most all of its irons.

Sigh...Shrug...I never mentioned this to my friend and I never will. She was very kind, and it was really my fault. I ought to have locked all the chests.

Alan

Re: Is it just me? (long)

Wade Mackey

>Personally, I've never "lost" a tool in my life. I've only misplaced them until after I buy a replacement. Once I've spent my money on a new one, the original will reveal itself to me and then I have two.

Wade Mackey

Lancaster, PA

Re: Is it just me? (long)

Jim in Burlington Ontario

>I'm missing a few squares a couple rulers 30-50 pencils a few saw's a drywall square 20 screwdrivers. They'll show up some day.

Re: Is it just me? (long)

Ernie Miller Topeka

>Somthing is wrong with you? I like never lose tools and I am a pack rat. This summer I lost my calckin gun but a day after I barrowed the neighbors I saw it hanging on the garage wall. sure screw drivers turn up missing but they are usualy in the wifes junk drawer (if I would do what she asks they would not be there) sure there are boxes of tools that I have bought at sales that I have no idea what is in them but unless it makes it to the shop they are not my tools they are someone elses waiting for me to sell them to them

That's it!

Scott Burr Ben Lomond,CA

>This is what always happens to me. Too bad it's doesn't happen with planes;).

Re: Is it just me? (long)

Todd O. Cronkhite Native of Maine

>Well David, I can pretty safely say that according to the current replies, it is not just you. I on the other hand feel that I haven't lost any tools, tho I have been known to missplace them from time to time, and forget what all I have, but loose, I'd have to say no. It is a full time job to achive this and that is without any outside forces such as kids, grandkids, etc, etc. Wife has been known to take a screwdriver from my toolbox, but as far as woodworking tools---never.

Hopefully your missing tools will surface, but I somehow doubt it. :~(

Todd O.

Divorce

David Miller from Iowa

>Pretty lousy divorce - her lawyer exacerbated it way more than neccesary. She did throw away a bunch of my stuff, but I was clever enought to get all the hand tools out first thing. I had to buy my table saw back from her for $200 though.

That sucks!

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond CA

>Taking a mans TS, that low...

Re: Is it just me? (long)

Don Thompson - Cutler Ridge, Florida

>It makes me crazy. The other day, I spent about an hour looking for a tool. Of course, I have since forgotten what tool it was. ;-)

Hardware and parts are bad, too.

I have one (1) phillips head gold-plated special anniversary edition Craftsman screwdriver. It was part of a set of twelve, in 1971. I have never given away or loaned any of them. Where did they go? I like that alternate universe theory! Maybe I should cast it into a cubic foot of acrylic plastic, and keep it in the living room. The one tool that did not get away.

Re: Is it just me? (long)

Alan Hamilton

>Don,

I think you're on to something. It's long been known that screwdrivers crawl away on their own, never to be seen again. But that doesn't make sense. I've never heard of anyone finding a nest of old screwdrivers anywhere.

So, sure they crawl off by themselves, but then what happens to them?

I think I know.

I believe screwdrivers are the larval form of wire coat hangers! It's easy to see what happens to the steel, but the plastic handles had me stumped until I remembered lots of hangers are made entirely of plastic, and others have just the hook make of wire.

I don't know how to stop this from happening. I suppose like circadae, black flies and locusts we just have to learn to put up with it.

Alan

Re: Is it just me? (long)

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>I don't know, Alan. For years women were ridiculed for claiming that socks disappeared in the wash. No way said everyone else! Come to find out that socks do indeed go out the washer drains with impunity.

Everything is eligible for mysterious disappearance. I put something down, go back to pick it up, it's not there. Some of these things are never found again, or at least so far.

Pam

Re: Is it just me? (long)

Dan Donaldson

>It is a wetzl warp. That is a random time warp that appears from time to time. If you happen to put an item near one, the item goes into a random time warp and reappears sometime in the future. I am sure that you have had the experience of looking all over for something only to have it suddenly be right where you had been looking. The reason that you did not find it the first time was because it wasn't there. It had not appeared through the time warp yet. Item that happen to get a long warp may not reappear in your lifetime, but one of your descendents will someday find it and wonder where it came from. That is my story and I am sticking to it ;-)

Socks do seem to go straight to the sewer. :)

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>

Re: Socks do seem to go straight to the sewer. :)

Alan Hamilton

>Pam,

You're right, as always. Socks definitely run away from home, and as you say, they often wind up in the most wretched places.

But socks are a special case. Like screwdrivers they struggle to get out on their own. (That's why in every drier load of socks one or more will hide just under the top rim on the side nearest you, flattening themselves out to elude eyes and touch.) But unlike screwdrivers, socks are more like prodigal offspring than the chrysalis of wire hangers. Screwdrivers don't run away to undergo change; they want to succeed; they want to make it--alone--in the wide world.

Socks are almost always destined to fail. Like many, the big cities attract them with bright lights and wide opportunities. They inevitably find their way to the mean streets and the uncaring masses.

It's heart-wrenching to see them after they have lost the way. They have abandoned their partners, and alone they have no chance. Desolate, forgotten, and friendless, in the gutters of our cities are the socks that didn't make it.

Alan

Wetzl Warp.....

Todd O. Cronkhite Native of Maine

>Boy, does that ever answer ALOT of questions, and takes off alot of the pressure. Here I thought my CRS was getting worse and all along it's been the Wetzl Warp in action. Thhere are days that between the Dark Forces of Evil and the Wetzl Warp that after working all day I have less done than I had before I had started. I hate them days.

Todd O.

Re: Socks do seem to go straight to the sewer. :)

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Well, socks that cling to the top rim aren't really trying to hide, they're just testing you, making sure you continue to deserve them. They'd also like it if you started hanging them out rather that using that pesky dryer, takes too much out of them. Of course, then they're in danger of being napped by the nest building birds; but that's easily avoided by using clothespins. Did you think they really like static electricity?

Pam

Disappearance / reappearance

Bill Lowrance, Geneva

>One learns so much from this site!

I appreciate Pam's explaining so sensitively about the behavior of socks. For this crowd I must add the observation that occasionally a single sock vanishes even when I wash a few pairs in the bathroom sink by hand...

And, hey: Might it be that some of the old tools that turn up at sales and on eBay are emerging from earlier eras' Wetzl warps?

:)

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Bill, you are truly more talented than anyone should be. Not only do you wash socks by hand in the sink, something I've only attempted with various nylon devices, you have figured out how to lose them in that process.

Pam

Re: :)

Bill Lowrance, Geneva

>Pam, Washing socks is simple; it's the socks that are talented, to be able to just vanish that way! Sometimes it's start with six identical navy-blues, and poof -- by rinse time, only five...