It’s surprising how one little job can consume an entire day if one puts one’s mind to it.
There’s a little hood over our aft door which was hastily repaired using double sided tape about nine years ago, and not to make too fine a point of it, has not been performing as expected during recent inclement weather. It should have been a ten minute job to repair the thing, but as in the song about the old lady who swallowed a fly, things did not go entirely as planned.
The sealant was very black and sticky, but having spent the winter in hibernation needed some persuasion to exit the cartridge in which it slumbered. It took a good deal of careful work with a sharp screwdriver, an allen key, a knife, another knife, a bit of stick, several paper towels and not a few rude words before any of it could be coaxed out of the thing. Just how, while not appearing from anywhere near the nozzle of the tube, some of the nasty goo found its way onto my best tee shirt will forever remain unexplained. In the process of rapidly searching for the dry cleaning fluid to mitigate that damage, more goo ended up on the galley sink, the cupboard door and on at least seven fingers and a thumb as well. After frantic scrubbing and soaking of the shirt, much of the stain departed, however left to its own devices while we were distracted, the goo had decided to ooze from the cartridge of its own accord.
With the nearly clean shirt half hanging out of a soup bowl filled with volatile liquid and black ooze heading toward it, something akin to panic ensued. The bowl was quickly swept from sink to benchtop, using hands which by now had themselves been entirely coated in a partially dissolved version of the sticky stuff. That was when we discovered that dry cleaning fluid dissolves benchtop finishes much more efficiently than it does black goo from tee shirts. Despite all of this, the job was eventually completed Perhaps by the end of next month the cleanup will be finished as well, or perhaps the things left to do will languish for an indeterminate time on a list made in their honour.
Eventually the storm came, the door didn’t leak and all was once again well with the world.
No comments
Post a Comment