Tuesday, November 9, 2010

More From the Cellar

Tara and I spent a few hours yesterday going through drawers in the cellar, gathering stuff for yes, another iron and precious metals run, which we did today. I didn't get any befores and afters, since the fact that we were going through stuff that was out of sight anyway meant it doesn't really look any different in there, though we did get rid of the white cabinet-thing that had been by the furnace.

I don't even know how many toolboxes there are in there now. Something like six or seven? It's another example of how my father had so much stuff he then had to acquire whole other kinds of stuff to then put the first stuff in.

We are beginning to get to a point where we will be able to start sorting tools, and making up useful sets of them, then tossing the rest. Because, really, who the Hel needs that many screwdrivers or wrenches? And make no mistake, it's not like the ones in the cellar are all the tools on the property, oh ho no.

Why who's this? Where did he come from? What? Oh, you want to count the drawers full of wrenches. Well, um, okay, take it away little mister lavender vampire thing with a silly accent:



Vone, vone vonderful drawer of wrenches!



Two, two vonderful drawers of wrenches!



Three, three vonderful drawers! Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah!!



Four, four vonderful drawers of vonderful wrenches!!



And POOF!! He's turned into a twitchy little bat-on-a-string and is gone out the window, to the flash of lightning.

What a strange little man.

Anyhoo.

As usual we found plenty of oddities my father had saved. This one, though, made me squeal a bit, I have to admit. Holy cow, it's actually the owner's manual for Mr. Sunshine the hippie-trippy shop vac:



It's hard to believe. Well, okay, it's not hard to believe my father saved it; what's hard to believe is that we actually found it. And by the bye, not one word of explanation in the manual for the design. Pity. Then there were these:



Ah, yes, the Expo '67, which Wikipedia tells me was in Montréal. One of my dad's favorite oft-repeated recollections was about the various World's Fairs he got to. I assume that is where he picked up these things, since, luckily, he couldn't bring home whole pavilions.

I gotta admit, Soviet Union sounds so exciting. From the 100 Peoples Invite You to the Soviet Union brochure:

Do you want to see the famous Baikal, the world's deepest freshwater lake? Or to hunt bears in the thickets of the Siberian taiga?

Would I!?! Well, actually, that'd be a nyet.

We also found this hunk of iron:



A whole mall for Witches? Awesome. Except you just know Llewelyn will have it's own (crappy) bookstore in there. Still, if I can get all my bibbity bits 'n' bobs in a one-stop shopping trip, count me in!

I'll bet this thing had a story. I can just imagine the movie scene:



Captain Horatio Commonsense: No, Lewis! No one's ever gone that deep and survived!

First Lieutenant John "Hero" Lewis: Pressure be damned! I can't let Jackson die down there!

*shatter*

Now for this, Tara had her suspicions; and, sure enough, with the addition of just a single drop of water:



Holy cow. Is that why this iron stuff is never ending? That explains a lot.

Really, you would think we'd gotten close to the bottom of the iron supply in the cellar by now. But I suspect we've still got one, maybe two more batches, especially when we start consolidating the tools, and get to the shelves/cabinets over the bench. Plus there's a whole tool box in the other part of the cellar we haven't thoroughly gone through yet. I'm sure there's stuff in there, too. And oh yeah, then there's the stuff hanging from the ceiling.

Who am I kidding? It's probably at least double that.

Ah well.

4 comments:

Dave said...

Crap thats one big ole cotter pin

Thalia said...

I know! Tara was like, But how do you even use it?!? You can't bend it to get it open!

Dave said...

btw Mr Goodwrench just got fired. Maybe Rusty and Randy could take him out for a beer.

Tracy said...

All those wrenches and none ratchet? I'm female too, and I do auto glass and work on my bike (94 Yamaha YZF 750R) so I understand the value of quality ratcheting tools. Anything else is simply uncivilized! My Snap-On and Craftsman sets make me $$$$ and they do it in comfort and style!! I heard yall say there is no 'why' but don't people who work on things eventually understand the reality of the time & wrist pain? I guess he honestly did like the hardest way to do anything... So sorry yall had to live with this!