Anyone that has ever owned a home has one of these. It is a collection of the various pieces and parts that either are needed to do a specific task or come with something as an assembly item or you have to buy a quantity of to get the part that you want.
Digging through it was a walk through history. Here were the slides I needed to extract my radio in 1996 and "upgrade" to CD that I never needed again along with the wire connectors in the handy 500 pack. Here also was The Tomb of The IKEA Parts, the ones that are extra but you never really are sure you should get rid of just in case you need them. Nails in the gross and wood screws of various sizes from various projects, from 1/4" nails to roofing nails and many different lengths of screws for the times you "thought" you had the right length but did not. Light bulbs and fuses for cars long sold. The radiator tightener you bought as a stop gap for the car you ended up having the radiator replaced on. Locks with keys and locks with no keys and a combination lock from your wife's high school days that no-one remembers the combination of.
Parts and pieces; pieces and parts.
I sorted through them, trying my best to take a stern "Are you really going to use that? Really?" approach - at which I only gave mediocre performance as I know only too well how six months from now I will need that one screw length and I do not want to risk throwing it away in the event I do need it and then have to buy a gross (to be clear, I have very many of those indeed. No danger of running out). I ended up throwing away a few things and re-organizing the rest.
The tool box, at least, now closes.
As with my parts box, so my life. Too many bits and pieces held on to in the event I might someday "need" them for some undefined purpose. I reorganize and reorganize but, like my parts, eventually I just have to start getting rid of something.
After all, my life, like my tool box, should have the lid be able to completely close.
My GOD! You can actually fit your "parts" in a "parts box???"
ReplyDeleteI couldn't do that to save my life! I have a parts box as well. ...It's called a barn...
Just a smaller locale, Pete. My father, on the other hand, does have a barn for parts...
ReplyDeleteYup, everybody has one of these, or more likely more than one! I'm just impressed you actually got yours organized!
ReplyDeleteLeigh, to be fair, I have it "roughly" organized. It will probably take another two tries to get to the point that I have really shed all that I do not need. But it was a good start.
ReplyDelete