Oh those little things that I have kept just in case, bits of wood, electric sockets, fitting packs from flat pack furniture, you know the sort of thing, bits and bobs that you had bought for a job and can’t bear to throw away as they may prove to be useful at some time. I have an old chest of drawers in the garage, itself something I couldn’t bring myself to throw away, full of the stuff. It’s a man thing. My father in law had a tin marked ‘String too short to be of any use’ and he clearly had been bitten worse than me.
The top draw of my garage treasure chest is full of fasteners, screws, nails, bolts and the like while the second draw is full of tools. Draw three is predominantly plumbing, taps, u-bends etc. and the bottom draw is for electrical items and other useful sundries. But there is more, a special shelf hanging from the roof that is crammed with old bits of wood such as shelves and laminate flooring, lamps, a tile cutter, a pasting table (we don’t have any wallpaper) and even a marble fire hearth. Well you never know when you might need such stuff.
Now I am not a lover of do-it-yourself, I’m not even an admirer of it as a pastime but once persuaded and underway I can turn my hand to most things but there are not enough years left of my life to be able to do the range of jobs that would require all of the stuff that I have collected. A handful of nails and score of screws will probably see me out, not a hundredweight of each.
But wait, that just in case moment has finally arrived, an opportunity to throw open the garage door, rummage inside my chest of drawers and reappear triumphant with the very things that I needed to finish a job. We had decided to make a small decking area out in the back garden and had bought the wood but needed to join the pieces together. What I needed were some small metal plates to bridge the gap between the boards and I hadn’t had the foresight to buy them in advance. Then I remembered that I had bought some joist fixing plates, as you do, for something I never got round to doing in the loft. A couple of dozen screws later and Bob is now my uncle.
It’s not like me, I’m not a natural hoarder but then we all do things that are out of character from time to time. My chest of draws is the exception that proves the rule. Those joist fixing plates had been waiting patiently for years, just for their special moment to arrive. Who knows, it may soon be time to put some wallpaper up and put back the marble fire place.
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 