Everybody's challenge for the week!

S.Crum

Well-known Member
Take a nice bright flashlight out to the shop, shed, garage or wherever you 'stick' stuff and start looking in cabinets, on shelves, in toolboxes under benches etc. and report back your findings. I did this for a while today in search of an expensive drywall tool I bought 25 or so years ago and need now, I know it's here somewhere just saw it not too long ago! I found a boat load of "stuff" I knew I had somewhere and even more "stuff" I don't remember having or at least don't remember getting. Still didn't find the drywall tool though!
 
I think I found your drywall tool if is a porter cable. But I can't find my basin wrench, new round point shovel(think son got it), two log chains, or my deadblow hammer.
 
I've found my "lost" tools in my co-workers truck. Seems he was going into my van and helping himself - I lock my van on the jobsite now, I can misplace my own tools fast enough without his help.....
 
Any time I needed a handtool I couldn't find elsewere, I would go out and cut the grass in the backyard--- the real iroiny is that both my sons are mechanics now and won't let anybody touch their tool boxs.
 
"Misplaced" my fairly new Blue Point rechargable trouble light about 10 days ago....looked and looked for it, not to be found. This was really bugging me as I really like this light (have a mate to it at work), can't blame anyone else for using it as I am the only one out in the shop. It showed up a few days back....hung on the hook right over the bench at eye level.....under the welding helmet!
 

The obvious solution to this problem is all those shelves, cabinets, tool boxes, hidie holes. If you just piled stuff on the floor you could spot it from ten feet away. LOL
 
You guy's are ammatuers, I've been known to look for a wrench through all my drawers while holding it in my hand. Sometimes using it to stir the wrenches in the junk wrench drawer. lol
 
Got a wife? That"s what I do when I can"t find something. Ask the wife to look. Usually have to give her a very detailed description, maybe even a drawing of what it is I can"t find. Yea, she will ask if this is it or if that is it a few times but dang if she doesn"t always find it in short order. Drives me nuts cuz I will look for an hour or longer before asking for her help and she usually finds it in less than 15 minutes.
 
For everyone's chuckling enjoyment! I found the tool! Of course in a completely separate area of the big shop in an unlabeled box of which I don't remember! We can all return to our regular plan of using stuff and not putting it back where it belongs now! I'm sure I just felt a chill of Dad passing by.
 
My wife can find anything Too , Great with the computer too , but horrible with keeping a vehicle up,So i Married Her.. lol / One day I was looking for spark plugs i bought for the combine serveral monthes earlier, I knew they were in the house in the coat closet somewhere , I described the type box to her , Came back in couple hours later for lunch ,, She tells me she couldnt find any Spark Plugs but she did find some SHOCKS ,pointing innocently to the spark plugs she set on the floor , Perhaps spending the 1st 20 Yrs of her life in Sicily has a little to do with it , they speak Directly ...
 
Now that's funny! Strange thing with my wife, I have followed her around trying to figure out how she finds things with the thought I won't need her some day. Stupid me, she starts looking somewhere and I quickly say "It's not there, I already looked". That's right, that is the place she usually finds it. So frustrating, and it happens almost every time. Pretty obvious I still need her!
 
yes i agree with asking the wife, but mine finds stuff and ask her how she found it and she tells me a voice told her ??? it works so i will go with it..
 
Today I went nuts for about an hour looking for my RED cordless drill. Looked everywhere, twice. In the shop...no, in the metal shed...no, heck is it inside the house...NO. Gave up and tried using a cord drill, but the chuck wouldn't lock down on the drill bit. Aggravated I wasn't going to drill one hole in a metal rod, I went to get a cold beer. Tripped over the red cordless on the way out of the shop. :roll:

Later I did find a gallon of hydraulic fluid, sweeet!
 
Spent most of a morning looking for the welding tip to my O/A torch. Gave up, did it some other way (don't remember now) but off-and-on for a year or more I'd poke around looking for that tip.

One day I was changing the oil in my truck and kicked over the pan I drained it into. Whilst cussing, grabbed my almost-empty 15 gallon plastic barrel of oil dry and stated shaking the oil dry over the puddle.

CLANG! Out came the tip I hadn't been able to find for months. Musta knocked it off the bench and into the barrel when the top was off it at some point.

At least it was dry...
 
If I could remember all the tools that I have misplaced and could not find I could write a book about it. I asked Laura if she knew where my cordless drill was, But she didn't know. I found it in the back of my old retired truck. I usually spend more time looking for what I can not find, than the actual job should take.
SDE
 
Buy a new one, you will find the old one when you go to put the new one away.

Could not find a set of Torx sockets and had to buy a new set to finish a job. New set bounced off the old set when I tossed them into the tool box.

Recently found a brass plumb bob with no string. Found the string a few days later but now cannot find the plumb bob.
 
my brothers wife is the best at finding things ive ever seen,he will be working on something (that he generally knows very little about) pull a part off and promptly lose it. after two or three hours of searching and a week later he will open the door to the garage and holler at his wife something like "hey Deb wheres that THING at?" she doesnt even look up and tells him where it is.even if she doesnt know what hes working on or what part hes lost. never seen it fail. how she knows what "thing" hes lost,to fit that "thing" hes working on ive never figured out.
 
This is the best column EVER! I thought I was the only guy looking for a tool and "stirring the box" with what I was looking for...I may be nuts, but what great company...
 
Think that's bad - I dumped out a 5 gallon bucket of old oil and found a CHICKEN I had lost a month earlier!
 
Last place I look is in my other hand, then my back pockets. That's usually where the missing tools are.

If I'm working on a motorcycle, after 20 minutes of searching it's on the seat......
 
(quoted from post at 11:00:36 10/01/12) Think that's bad - I dumped out a 5 gallon bucket of old oil and found a CHICKEN I had lost a month earlier!
A chicken? lmfao!
 
Here we go. Many years ago on the farm my dad adjusted the lash in the valves on the 300 utility tractor. Now I was about 17 and was already out classing him in the mechanical department. About a week latter he is askin where the 9/16 box wrench and the small socket wrench and extension were. I know nothin about it and he is blaming me!
Now we go the the NEXT season of summer a whole year later and I am cleanig the generator out. Take off the metal dust band and blow out the carbon dust with the air hose. As I am leaning over the side of the tractor...yup. "Hey pop do you see what is down here between the generator and the vale cover covered with dust,dirt, and a little crud??????" Right where he left it. Now you think he didn"t try to deney it? Jeffcat
 
You guys are fun. Many times I think the gremlins hide stuff and then put it back where we put it,,just for laughs.

This morning I looked for about 10 minutes for the green ladder here at the shop. One of the guys finally asked me what I was looking for.

That's when I remembered the green 8 foot ladder is at home, the BLUE 8 foot ladder is here.
 
The last month I've been looking for a 5 foot pry bar. Pointed on one end and wedge on the other and weighs about 25lbs. Drives me mad that I can't find it . Suppose it walked off?
 
What annoys me is seeing something that's been missing for a while and thinking "so, that's where it is". Then needing it a few days later and having no idea where it would be.
 
I have had trouble finding things for years but all of the things i have found were in the last place I looked. Next time I will save all of the time and just look in the last place first. SIMPLE
 
I found it behind my barn here in central California. I know it's not mine, cause the last time I saw mine, it wasn't rusty; 'bout 5 years ago.
Now, where's my come-a-long?
 
I will lay tools on the ground and then crawl under the truck. I then need to crawl out from under the truck because the tool is so close to my body that I can not see it or if I know where it is, it is to close to my upper body for me to get a Hold of it. Or I have to make 5 more trips to the garage to get more tools that I did not anticipate needing. I put the gas tank back up in my truck yesterday and a very rusty brake line broke beside the tank. I had a soft petal immediately and so back to town for the fourth time to get a brake line and take the tank down AGAIN.
SDE
 
I'm missing a solid copper 3 pound hammer. It
went missing one day when I left the shop open
and went for hardware..a 20 minute run. I'm
pretty sure who took it..someone who is nice,but
has sticky fingers..can't proove it though!
The "Old Widows" think he's "So Nice", because
he will "Help them get ready for a sale" by
cleaning their garage for free. Things dissapear!
 
I had wondered why there was oil splashed all around the shop - but I never made the connection between the lost chicken and the oil mess.

But that's not even the funny part, it's how I found it that makes me laugh.

Several weeks later I brought my oil to the town dump (in the next town over where I'm not even supposed to be going)

It's a transfer station - they're VERY strict there, but the guy let me go in and dump the oil into their drums - they have a one gallon limit -I had five. So I was being extra nice.

So I'm in a strange dump with an illegaly borrowed sticker - dumping more oil them I'm supposed to be dumping - I'm already on pretty shakey ground.

All of a sudden PLOP -

A huge mass falls into the funnel - BLOCKING the funnel and causing LOTS of oil to backup up all over the floor.

NOW I can add environmental disaster AND safety hazard to the list of things I'm doing wrong.

Thankfully the dump-nazi had his back turned for a moment.

I picked out the clump thinking it must have been a balled up t-shirt I had used as a rag...

Then I saw two curled up chicken feet and it all came together for me.

I looked over at the guy - thank god he still had his back turned, so I without even thinking I tossed the chicken on top of the nearest trashpile and completed dumping out the rest of the oil before he could see.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see the chicken roll down the pile and out onto the floor.

It just lay there like a big oily chicken. There was no hiding it.

I figured I better not call attention to it so I just left it there, and got out as fast as I could.

I think I'm done using their facility for a while.
 
You just described this pack-rat's life.... :(

I'm the 3rd generation of pack rat to live on this farm, never really been cleaned out. Think on that a bit. One shed I don't really know where the walls are.....

Now, the stuff dad packed away is kinda sentimental, and the stuff grandpa (never knew him) packed away has gotten to antique and valuable status.

Heck, there is a set of deer hooves hanging in the shop rafters, I believe it was from the first deer my uncle shot if I remember the story. Uncle been burried a decade now, those legs must be 70+ years old.....

And I'm real bad at 'gotta be in a hurry' and fix something, leave the tools lay in a pile. Then, like you say, when I need the same special tool 6 months later (or 4 years later) then - oh, where did I last see/ use that?????

Dad has a flat belt lacing machine from back in the flat belt days. Well, got a round baler now, so actually could uuse it! Something old came back in style!

I ended up taking my torn baler belt to the repair place this summer, quicker than looking for that tool somewhere in the shop - somewhere....

Sigh.

--->Paul
 
The cause of this may be related to the "doorway force field" that I've discovered. Everytime I walk through a doorway into a room, I'll forget why I went in there in the first place. Sometimes if I retrace my steps back through the doorway again, I'll remember why I went in, but that only works once in a while.

CrabbyJack
 
Last summer we cleaned out the garage where we park the pick-ups. The boss comes in later in the afternoon and says something to the effect of, he has never seen that wall before. And he is nearly 40.

We also sorted the about 60+ old tires kept for spares and threw out a bunch of junk ones while we were at it.
 
Been there done that. I finally find some tool or piece of hardware and when I get done using it, I have to put it right back where I found it no matter where is was or I might not find it next time. But then the garage gremlin moves it when I am not looking and I have to start over again.
 
(quoted from post at 21:42:18 11/05/12) Been there done that. I finally find some tool or piece of hardware and when I get done using it, I have to put it right back where I found it no matter where is was or I might not find it next time. But then the garage gremlin moves it when I am not looking and I have to start over again.
Right back where I found it" has always been the key to me, right down to sewing machine oil in the bathroom medicine cabinet!!! I don't know or remember why, but I do know where to find it for the last 30 years.
 

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