THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, August 15, 1994 TAG: 9408130011
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A7 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: George Hebert
LENGTH: Medium: 62 lines
Not finding things in stores has sent me up the wall many a time. I've had my complaints about seasonal items that took flight from shelves just when I was looking for them, about products of new and attractive design that just seemed to disappear. And so on.
But the grousing may have been unfair. That's what a bit of reflection and some experiences, recent or recently recalled, now suggest. For there really is another side to the story - about the multitude of products, sometimes happily geared to special needs, that are available in the marketplace for the ordinary shopper, the do-it-yourselfer or whomever.
I think, for instance, of the damaged garden-hose fitting that seemed to call for the purchase of an entire new hose section. But I thought I would first check to see if there was any way to replace the threaded metal terminal. Lo and behold, the hardware store had just the ticket, a piece you clamped on after slicing the damaged piece from the old hose. A really cheap repair, and one I suppose lots of other people had used routinely well before my own education.
Another for-instance: Storing long electrical cords so that they make handy, unkinked rolls isn't easy. But not long ago, in a discount outlet, I ran across a binful of inexpensive winding frames that work like a charm.
Trying to keep a book open at a certain page while taking notes, or while leafing through some other publication to fill out a piece of research, or even for reading while snacking, say, has been a persistent vexation. A paperweight or a ruler laid across the open pages were fair stopgaps, but the real answer came in one of those shops that supply odd gadgets: There I found a device made precisely for the purpose: a strip of soft leather, weighted at each end. My little problem was nicely and permanently solved.
And then there was this:
Regular oiling is prescribed for our attic fan, and I regularly procrastinate. It's hot up there in fan season. More to the point, the oil port on the motor is in the wrong position for my hand and my oil can, and to start with, it's difficult to wriggle my arm between the rafters and into the tiny space behind the fan blades.
In desperation, my mind turned to the possibility of a small oil container with a curled spout or one on a swivel, or something other than what I had. So, though skeptical, I went oil-can shopping.
I never got beyond the first place. Sure they had something. Not a can, though. A little plastic squeeze bottle. With about 10 inches of flexible plastic tube only a little thicker than a pencil lead. This could squirt oil into almost any nook or cranny, - around over or under almost any obstruction.
Problem solved.
Hallelujah!
I have since learned that this is another another commonly available piece of ingenuity, one I just didn't happen to know about.
Hallelujah anyhow! MEMO: Mr. Hebert is a former editor of The Ledger-Star.
by CNB