Last year, when I was staining my deck, I found a little hook screwed into the outside of the deck. A small hook, not something big enough to hang a plant on, but bigger than a small eyehook screw. I had no use for it, so I took it off of the deck, and I thought I might throw it away.
Well, you know me.
Since the hook was only partially oxidized, I threw it into the drawer amongst my tools that holds miscellaneous screws, eyehooks, s hooks, and whatnot.
So we have a woodburned sign that hangs from a post beside our driveway with our family name on it (“Welcome to the Smith-Wessons”). In the recent (and by recent, I mean “a couple weeks ago) wind storm, the sign blew off the post, from which it was hanging by a couple of chain links between hooks on the post and hooks on the sign. As is the wont of our woodwork in the wind, the hook from the post was missing.
So as I was rooting in the drawer for an eyehook screw to replace the missing hook, I came across the still only partially oxidized recycled screw from the deck. And I found that it was actually the same style of hook as the missing hook from the post. So a couple bits of broken toothpick and a bit of twisting later, and the sign is back up until the next windstorm.
But using that recycled screw is now going to be all the justification I need for my normal packrattery. All the times I through something in a drawer instead of into a trash can because I might use it someday (but seemingly never do) are trumped by this one time where, yes, I did actually use it.
