Why oh why.......??

[Bill Huber]

When you are looking for 2 screws in that miscellaneous box of a thousand screws you can only find one.
That is until you go by some and then later looking for something else you find 5 of them, just like you wanted last time.

When you need a small board that only needs to be 14 1/8 inches long the only scrap you have is 13 and 7/8.

If you just need a 1/2 pint of finish you will find you only have 1/4 of a pint.

Do you never have the router bit you want, you have one close but its just not the one you needed and have to go buy one.

No matter how many clamps you have there is this job and you find you just need one more.....

You plan on 2 hours for this little job and it always takes 4.

You are in the middle of a big glue up and that is when the wife calls you for dinner, and you know you better go.

Then the biggie, is every time you go to the lumber yard or big box store and when you get home you find that you forgot the main thing you were going to get.

Is this just because I am getting OLD ???:(

[Stephen Tashiro]

My method for finding a Phillips screwdriver is to first pick up 5 slotted screwdrivers from various tool boxes. To find a slotted screwdriver, I do the reverse.

[Peter Quinn]

No Bill, uncle Murphy doesn't discriminate on the basis of age. His law applies to all of us.:eek::eek:

[Robert foster]

I'm with you Bill. I live 100 miles from the borgs. woodstores and HF. Each time I get home I've forgotten something. I forgot what else I was going to say.

Bob

[John Coloccia]

Is this just because I am getting OLD ???:(

Why do you think old people are always walking around with lists? The sign of getting old is when you buy everything you need, you get home, and you can't remember what it was you had intended to do with them.

5 years later, you take a picture and post it on SMC. "I was looking for a couple of screws, and found these things. Anyone know what they are and what you use them for?"

[Van Huskey]

Bill, you are being a "glass half empty" guy on this one, you just didn't notice all those times you had the right screw, scrap big enough, plenty of extra finish etc. You could just ignore my comment since I am trying to work on being more positive... LOML seems to think I need it. :eek:

[Thomas Canfield]

Bill,

It is like placing the new replacement tool for storage next to the old tool you could not find earlier. There are gremlins out there working against us.

[John McClanahan]

This is the excuse I use for having several half done projects lying around. When I go looking for those screws, I will not only not find what I need, I will find the very thing that stalled me out on one of the other projects. :rolleyes:

John

[Dave Lehnert]

I was in the middle of a project and needed a special size forstner bit. A bit I knew I had in my shop but could not find it. I looked for over an hour. So the next day I wast 2 hrs driving to Rockler to get another bit. Get back to my shop, Pull my Shopsmith drill chuck out of it's holder to use. Guess what was mounted in the chuck? :o

[Richard M. Wolfe]

It's easy to find those screws or miscellaneous small tools. Just start working on a different project.

[Bill White]

I just want to know when you were in my shop lookin' over my shoulder. :confused:
Bill

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Bill,

It's a rule of Nature I think..............

Take Friday for example.......

I was disassembling my angle grinder and putting it away. I took the special wrench, loosened and removed the nut that holds the blade on. This nut...round, 1/4" thick, takes a special wrench to fit the 2 holes in it....I dropped it. I was standing by my tablesaw when I dropped it. I only looked for it for 20 minutes....down on my hands and knees.....


Finally I commited to the idea I'd find it someday and not remember it's purpose and throw it away......

I walked behind my new jointer. There it was against the wall. It had to have rolled in an arc to get behind that jointer. It's too big to roll under the jointer.

So .....just accept that you are going to be 1/4 cup short.....1 screw short.....and just decide to throw the project away and be done with it.....you'll find what you need cause Nature ain't gonna let you do what you'd like or what seems reasonable.

[David Helm]

First; my shop is very clean. I promised myself that when I finally got it rebuilt I would put things away, and have an actual place for each thing that would always be the same. My problem is, I can have a tool in my hand and be using it. I'll put it down for a minute (maybe get a cup of coffee) and it will have disappeared. The next twenty minutes are spent searching for the tool I just had!

There are two signs that one is growing old. The first is memory loss . . . and I just can't remember what the other one is.

[Zach Callum]

First; my shop is very clean. I promised myself that when I finally got it rebuilt I would put things away, and have an actual place for each thing that would always be the same. My problem is, I can have a tool in my hand and be using it. I'll put it down for a minute (maybe get a cup of coffee) and it will have disappeared. The next twenty minutes are spent searching for the tool I just had!

There are two signs that one is growing old. The first is memory loss . . . and I just can't remember what the other one is.
I'm glad I'm not the only one!

[Dan Hintz]

So .....just accept that you are going to be 1/4 cup short...
I know a few people like that...

[glenn bradley]

Is this just because I am getting OLD ???:(

No, that is not it (my standard age denial statement).

I have experienced all those things but one. Nothing short of my own mother dying of a heart attack at my feet would interrupt me during a glue-up (LOML is a big-girl, she can fend for herself). Seeming how the glue-up stage(s) and the finishing stage(s) are the two places that you can make all your effort up to that point go south; nothing stops that process ;-)

P.s. Famous last words :D:D:D

[Lee Schierer]

For the same reason that if you need 8 screws they will only come 7 to a package in the size you need.

Or if you add 10% to an order for concrete you will have twice what you need otherwise you will be about 2 feet short.

Remember that missing tools, screws, pencils and tape measures are always in the last place you look.:D

[Gene Waara]

[QUOTE=David Helm;1522794]My problem is, I can have a tool in my hand and be using it. I'll put it down for a minute (maybe get a cup of coffee) and it will have disappeared. The next twenty minutes are spent searching for the tool I just had!
+2
My dad had a couple of large cans full of screws. One day after he retired I stopped by and he had these cans all emptied across his workbench. He said he finally had the time and was was going to separate them by type and size and put them in different cans/bottles. A couple of years after he passed I was doing some work at my mom's house and went to his shop to find a screw. All of the screws were back in a couple of cans. When I asked mom about it she said she was tired ot looking at all the cans/bottles and "cleaned up the mess" by putting it all in a couple of cans. I could here dad rolling.....:mad:

[ray hampton]

WELL ,sometime I find what I was looking for in the first place that I look
How can I overlook sometime at big as a house-?

[Brett Clark]

A while back I decided it was best to just quitting for things and wait for them to appear. If I can't find something in a minute or two, I move on to something else. Invariably the item I was looking for presents itself shortly thereafter. And it is always right where I left it.

According to my son this is a symptom of Attention Deficit Disorder. I think it's more likely a manifestation of Cluttered Shop Syndrome. :rolleyes:

[glenn bradley]

For the same reason that if you need 8 screws they will only come 7 to a package in the size you need.

That's right! I forgot about that one. How do they know? . . .. spooky.

[Laurie Brown]

This happened to me just the other day. Not only does it happen with tools and screws, usually computer parts, keys, pens... I still don't know where my checkbook went, but it will show up again when I don't want it.

The other day, I had my small digital camera with me. I'd been taking pics at a friend's house. I dropped the camera onto the passenger's seat and it bounced, rolling down between the seat and the passenger door.

In the split-second moments between that happening and myself getting into the car's drivers seat and closing the door, the camera had completely left my thoughts, so I no longer remembered to reach over and pick it up from where it had rolled, now out of sight and out of mind.

When I got home, I took the mail and other things I'd gotten inside and set them on my desk. I went to the bathroom, and did a bit of vacuuming. Returned to my desk to download the pictures from the camera onto my computer. But the camera wasn't on my desk with the other things I'd brought in from the car. I was sure I had rbought it in with everything else, and I spent half an hour scouring the house and tracing my path everywhere I'd been, looking for it. At one point I even went back out to the car, but didn't see it, and didn't remember that it had rolled out of sight, so went back in the house to search some more.

Finally I gave up. Frustrated, angry, and worn out, I sat down at my desk to rest and have a drink. Just then, pop! Into my brain came an image of the camera, rolling over the edge of the seat and out of sight in the car. I got up and went back to the car, and there it was, between the seat and the door. Now, WHY could I not remember that when I first noticed the camera wasn't on my desk instead of 30+ minutes later???

Happens to me ALL the time and it gets so frustrating, especially with something I had in my hand SECONDS earlier and just laid down 'somewhere'. Argh!

Most of the time I spend on a project is spent looking for missing tools.

[Don Morris]

Bill,

Was listening to a friend who just got home from the grocery store and told me about a gentleman she encountered who passed her by saying: "Damn it, I forgot it again, Damn, damn, damn". I can relate to that guy. And I've had all of the situations listed in Bill's list happen to me more than once. My favorite saying has become: "My mind won't save my feet." I just don't worry about it as much. Wouldn't do any good, anyway.

[Gary Hodgin]

Bill,
I thought I was the only one with those problems. I have four 12" combo squares, 3 cheapos and a starrett. Guess which one I've looked everywhere for and can't find.
Gary

[ray hampton]

I had a bad habit of sticking a screw-driver in my back-pocket and then forget about it being there///a screw-driver will make a hole in your car-seat and hold you in the seat when you need to get out quickly

[Alan Schwabacher]

When you get old, you get forgetful. You forget that you've forgotten stuff like that all your life.

[Don Bullock]

My wife doesn't work in my shop at all, but she can find "missing" things a lot faster than I can. Just this morning she found the wood putty that I was looking for. Of course it was just where I left it about four months ago.

[Jim Eller]

Yup!! I can verify that yer gettin' old Bill............because I have those same problems.

Plus................ if the project is suppose to cost me $xxx.xx dollars it always costs at least twice as much! My math skills are goin' to hell too.

Good post Bill.

[Gene Howe]

I lost my Makita cordless drill. Looked for over an hour, tore the shop apart.
Finally decided to wait till the wife got home and ask her if she used it.
When she drove up I saw it. Laying on the step bumper under the tail gate of the PU she had taken shopping. Right where I'd left it.
34 miles and it didn't fall off or get stolen. The tool Gods were with me.

[Bob Turkovich]

Just started looking at this thread. It has to be one of the best.....threads......ever........ . Every post a winner!

Ken, Another chance to mention the new jointer, eh? I am still not jealous...:rolleyes:

Laurie, you missed the simple answer. Next time you're missing something, just start drinking sooner!:D

[Jim Rimmer]

According to my son this is a symptom of Attention Deficit Disorder. I think it's more likely a manifestation of Cluttered Shop Syndrome. :rolleyes:
I have HD ADD. I find it hard to concentrate, but when I can things are really clear.

[ray hampton]

I lost my Makita cordless drill. Looked for over an hour, tore the shop apart.
Finally decided to wait till the wife got home and ask her if she used it.
When she drove up I saw it. Laying on the step bumper under the tail gate of the PU she had taken shopping. Right where I'd left it.
34 miles and it didn't fall off or get stolen. The tool Gods were with me.



my wife and daughter got back from the store and the wife
could not find her cell phone, so I offer to find it---after the
phone started ringing, we spent a couple minutes before I
find because the car body channel sound quite wonderful---
the phone were in the area around the windshield wipers and
had stay there during the drive home

[Laurie Brown]

Here's my malfunction moment for the day...

I got home from work and decided I wanted some lunch. Popped a quick frozen meal in the microwave, turned it on, and went to my desk. Promptly forgot about the food in the microwave. Went back to the kitchen a little while later hungry and decided to make up a grilled cheese sandwich. Ate that, went back to the kitchen to take out chicken to thaw for dinner. Opened the microwave, found my first lunch still sitting there an hour after I cooked it. Ummm....