February 3, 1999
DOWN HOME:
Bookcase tops thumbs
in towering test of wills
___At least my thumbs still work. For awhile there, I wasn't so sure.
___My digit-crunching project started simply: Fix the bookcases on Saturday afternoon. Sounds simple, huh?
___Not for the "handy impaired."
___We've got these cheap--notice I said "cheap," not "inexpensive"-- bookcases in the little office area off the living room.
___They're made out of particle board and somekind of thin white laminate. They look OK, but they're not so hot at holding up books. The third shelf from the bottom on the right bookcase caved under the weight of so many paperbacks. And I thought I'd fix it.
MARV KNOX
Editor
___The shelf fell because it warped. But if I could pull the sides of the cases in to sagging shelves, I reasoned, they would hold together. I-bolts, wire and turnbuckles ought to do the trick.
___A couple of trips to our handy neighborhood hardware store later, I had what I needed. Then I started on the fun part--drilling. Had to make a place for the I-bolts, so I fired up the ol' drill and started making a hole.
___Problem was, I got in too big of a hurry. At some point, the thought crossed my mind that I really ought to take down all the books and shelves before I started working.
___"Nah," I countered in typical pell-male fashion. "That'll just slow me up."
___The drill bit sank about halfway through the particle board when the bookcase won this little test of wills.
___First, shelf 4, just above the drill, fell. That's the shelf that smashed my thumbs and trapped my hands on top of two decades worth of photo albums. Not to be left out, shelves 5, 6 and 7 got in on the action, raining novels, biographies and a shelf-full of children's books on my head, shoulders and arms.
___All my childhood Sunday school teachers and my mom will be glad to know I didn't cuss. At least I don't think "Waaaaaarrgh" is a swear word in any known language.
___But instantaneously, I realized what I should've known all along: Doing the job right the first time would have saved my thumbs, not to mention my pride, considerable agony.
___With empty bookcase shells at the ready, the project took a safe 30 minutes to complete. Well, that's not counting four hours of sorting and re-stacking a forlorn pile of books that lay in shambles on the floor. And three days for my thumbs to recuperate.
___Have you ever treated a life task like my bookcase project? Maybe it was repairing a relationship. Or sharing your faith, or extending goodwill to a less-than-friendly neighbor.
___Like unstacking books and dismantling a bookcase, sometimes we've got to do the preparation work--prayer, Bible study and reflection--before we tackle the job. And do it right.Frontpage / Contents/ Masthead / Why We're Here / Links / Archive / E-mail us/ SUBSCRIBE!