When the nut is missing
Stuff breaks. It always has, always will. In spite of all the advances we make in technology, there’s always a loose nut somewhere in the equation, waiting for the right moment to drop off the train and bring things to a screeching halt somewhere down the track. Assuming that the errant nut wasn’t responsible for the brakes.
And in a world that loves to replace the “used” stuff in our lives, the access to repair parts is strictly limited. My grandfather was a blacksmith, and he repaired broken things, albeit with a hammer and a lot of heat. Practical repair skills in a world that didn’t have a dealer wanting to flog a new one on every second corner.
Last night, the wipers on the car stopped working. I was outside in my finest bare legs with a flashlight to check, but it wasn’t my new blades that had failed. This was deep inside the beast; we could hear a motor but the wig-wag wasn’t. Further information would wait until daylight.
After suiting up for the subzero conditions, I boldly poked where none in our family have gone before and discovered that a nut was gone. The wiper transmission assembly was free to do nothing of value until such time as a replacement could be found. On weekends, car dealers and garages lock the doors and the only recourse is patience. I dug through tins of odd screws, bolts, things without names and other assorted remainders of past bicycles, but I lacked anything that could measure the precise details of the naked bolt.
Going to a hardware store and trying to buy a nut that is “just a bit bigger than the end of my little finger”, in French; priceless. Also, not to be found. I could have assorted boxes of nuts, 100 to the lot, in incremental sizes. No assorted nutpacks though; that right now belongs to the peanut and cashew dealers of the world. I did leave the store with a small package of one size, some light bulbs and a short extension cord. After all, having gone all the way there, it only made sense to buy an armload of stuff.
The nut is close, but not quite. If I go crazy and lunk it down with an assortment of vicegrips and crude curse words, I risk stripping the thread and requiring replacement of the whole motor assembly. I’m older and wiser now, so the home repair project (shady tree garage chapter) is on hold. We’ll just have to commit to not traveling on roads where there might be snow or slush. We might just be staying around the house for the rest of the weekend
