The Quest

Today we went on a quest.

Let me stop you before you get really excited and think it is going to be some life-changing post about a spiritual quest, or a quest which resulted in some type of earth-shattering self-actualization. It wasn’t anything like that. It was a quest of such insignificance, I find it hard to believe I am actually sharing this with you.

We, we being my husband and I, went in search of the elusive perfect black wood screw. Yup, there it is, we spent the day looking for an 8×2 ½ inch black wood screw (or actually 2 8×2 ½ inch wood screws). It turns out, these types of screws are very hard to come by.

Why did we do this?   Because we had a gate and fence replaced. Mikey, our Great Dane, loves to stand with his front paws up on the fence, and stare over it. He is very nosy. But he doesn’t gently place his feet up there, he takes a running leap and flings himself onto the fence. Our previous fence did not fare well under this abuse, and so it had to be replaced. But, when it was replaced, the latch was not installed to my husband’s liking and hence the need to find longer screws, in black, in which to attach the latch more securely.

Then you are saying to yourself, but why a whole day, spent looking for these screws. Ummm – you might need some backstory on this one. Suffice it to say, my husband doesn’t settle for anything, it has to be perfect. P-E-R-F-E-C-T, perfect. Suffice it to say, we spent an entire vacation in Maui looking for the perfect black penny loafer, the ones with the notches in it, so you can put the penny in it. Who searches for penny loafers in Maui? My husband – that’s who. Most people search for shells, tropical clothing, paintings of dolphins, stuff like that while vacationing in Maui – but no, we looked for penny loafers. Did we find them? Yup! Did he ever wear them? Nope, well maybe once and by that point they were so coated with years of that white substance which comes from the ultrasonic humidifiers, they were grey. Have I ever let him live this down? Nope!

Back to our quest. This was actually the second installment of our quest. We had tried to find these black screws at one hardware store yesterday and then given up. Today we went to the super hard ware store in hope that they might have these screws.

While waiting for my husband to search every bin of screws, I found some most interesting things. I thought they were interesting. And here is something to ponder. You know how they have comfy chairs in clothing stores and shoe stores for the husbands to sit on, while waiting patiently for their wives to try on clothes? How come they don’t have comfy chairs for the wives to sit on, while waiting for their husbands to do their shopping at the super big hardware stores? Just saying – I think that is a brilliant idea.

Back to the interesting things I found. While lollygagging around, I discovered the Earthquake Preparation Center. It had some of the most fascinating items, such as little sticky things you can put under your knick-knacks so they don’t go slip-sliding around during a quake. Or the straps to hold furniture to a wall, or secure TVs so they don’t topple over. And then there were the survival backpacks which touted having enough stuff in them to keep one going for three days. They were small, I can’t imagine them having enough stuff in them to keep a person going for three days.

All of this makes me wonder if perhaps the super big hardware store people know something we don’t know. I specifically asked when interviewing for this job out here if we would be living on an earthquake fault and I was told no. Perhaps because we reside in an area 3 hours from San Francisco and 3 hours from Los Angeles, we might suffer from the aftershocks. I don’t know. However, it was a bit disconcerting to see these items for sale.

Did we ever find the elusive perfect woodscrews? Oh no, we did not. Was the gate fixed? Yes it was. How, you ask? Ummm, using silver 8 x 2 ½ screws.

Photo credit: earthboundwikia.com