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Sunday, January 22, 2012

Stupid Glue

This is not my oven; I borrowed the picture from This is BrokenI have a microwave oven that looks just like this, except that at the moment mine has no handle on the door. 
You know households where nothing is ever broken for more than a half hour? My impression of many of my usual commenters is that they live in households like that . . . that they live lives of Absolute Tidiness and Good Maintenance.
I and my household are not like that.



More than a year ago, the handle broke off the microwave oven. That is, the bottom of the handle broke loose from the door. We grew accustomed to pulling at the top of the handle, and quite forgot that there was anything amiss, until, of course, the top of the handle finally broke. 
As they always do, eventually. 
The final bond always tears loose, once the separation process has begun...


I waited for Husband to fix it. In the Rule Book, husbands are supposed to be the small appliance fixer people. He didn't fix it. After sufficient time had passed, I went to the store, bought some Super Glue (Husband calls it Stupid Glue) and reattached the handle. It's worked fine for several months now. Last night Husband broke it off again.
This morning I came downstairs and started the coffeemaker. Idly, I picked up the microwave handle to see if I could fit its broken pieces onto the broken pieces remaining on the appliance's door. Voila! It clicked into place without my feeling the first prickle of sweat. 
Amazing! Going to be a good day! I'll just get the Super Glue from the kitchen junk drawer and do this baby up and I'll be a heroine.
And that's when the trouble started.
I have a couple of junk drawers in my kitchen . . . in which are stored more batteries (a few C size, forty AAA, sixty-four N) than in the junk drawers of any twelve people you know. Some of them are in the sealed original packaging. Quite a few are rolling around loose, and yet others sit alone in the blister pack that cozily held two, one of which is now in service. I found four film canisters from a camera I can't even remember owning. I have been saving them for eventual developing. This morning I threw them all away. All the photos are probably of Lake George and the boat we had twenty-five years ago, and little black poodle BeauBear in his white sailor cap and sailor collar. I remember all that quite well enough and don't need pictures (that probably wouldn't develop anyway) to remind me of happy times past. I found several tubes of household adhesive: stuff that needs to be mixed together and applied with a putty knife. I know what that stuff looks like when the [admittedly failsafe] repair is complete. There's a black line that forever shouts, "This is where this thing was broken and got plastered back together!" I found a ring of keys on a keyholder that I loved while I used it. It was a four-inch-long piece of leather with a snap hook on one end. There were four keys on the ring. I have lived without those keys for more than five years; I suspect one of them is a key to a restaurant I worked in, and a couple of others might be to the old Village Hall, which long ago reverted to a private residence that's been owned by, I think, three parties since I worked there. I threw away that whole mess.
So. 
All this, and no tiny tube of Super Glue. I did find an unopened package of Lock Tite . . . an unspillable bottle with a brush the size of a nail polish brush. That's what the picture looked like, anyway. When I opened the package, and then the bottle, the brush was stuck in the dead dried up glue, so I never got a good look at the actual bristles. I remember hearing a comedian saying that you could only ever use Super Glue once because you'd never be able to get the cap off again. I laughed long and hard over that; the truest things are the funniest.


Before I started to write this, I Googled for a photo of a GE microwave with a broken handle and found messageboards full of messages from people with broken microwave handles who had unscrewed one end of the handle, couldn't find how to get at the lower screw attachment and were looking for help. The ensuing discussions got into how to remove and replace the rubber bumper that seals the door and blahblahblah. What?!?!?! Those are people who like the fixing and not the fixed. I guess that's how one fixes things properly
I can't be bothered.
I'll make a run to the store later, get another tube of Super Glue, stick the thing back together and call it good. We need milk anyway. After I've used it, maybe I'll put the Super Glue in my makeup bag or somewhere where I'll run across it from time to time and know where it is when I need it again. 


About once every blue moon I wear false eyelashes. 
The tube of eyelash adhesive is about the same size as the Super Glue tube. 


Better rethink that.

23 comments:

Muffy's Marks said...

Oh my goodness don't be putting that crap on you eyes!! We keep our super glue in the freezer, don't ask me why, but whenever we want to use it, 1.) the cap comes off, and 2.) its never dried up!!

DJan said...

When I met my husband twenty years ago, I had a very respectable junk drawer. Everyone has one, right? I would rummage through it every now and then and find what I needed. But when we moved up here to the Pacific Northwest four years ago, he got to decide what and how the junk drawer would be used. It's pristine! With everything in the right place! I miss my old junk drawer and you made me nostalgic. :-)

Tracy said...

June, too funny and YES, we all have junk drawers that are just as you described it! great post!

Rubye Jack said...

This is funny and I so very much relate. Super glue is great and it works and it's cheap. Why not?
I've known some people who would go buy a new microwave if the handle broke.

Meryl Baer said...

Years ago my in-laws moved a few blocks from one house to another. I will never forget my FIL took the junk drawer from the old house, drove to the new house and dumped the entire contents into a kitchen drawer in the new house.
Most of us can relate to your story!

Hilary said...

There must be an interesting psychology behind the junk drawer because we all have them (all except for poor DJan, that is). ;)

I have to admit that crazy glue is a far better solution to the problem than duct tape which SOME people (looks over shoulder to make sure he's not reading) would use. :)

rachel said...

Duct tape.... duct tape.... duct tape, June! Not beautiful, but works, and doesn't stick you to the door handles or your own thumb. Half my house was held together with duct tape until I had to put it (the house) on the market; now, with all-new appliances, I know that in time they will all start dropping to bits at once, and the duct tape box will come out again....

Olga said...

My microwave looks like that. If the handle breaks we will do the replacement thing because we are like that. A friend calls us CDO (because that is in alphabetical order) so you can imagine if you saw one of our "junk drawers" you'd probably have to smack one of us...or both.

I will confess that I once tried to fix a wooden lamp table with stupid glue (love that expression), but only managed to glue my fingers together. Mike threw the table away when he got home.

seemeye said...

The good ole junk drawer. What would I do without it?

#1Nana said...

It's like you were standing in my kitchen! Except our doorless microwave is a Maytag. We didn't even try to fix it. We've developed stron fingers and can open the door from the bottom.

I also can't believe you threw away keys!!! I've got those same mystery keys, but I know that the day I throw them away is the day that I discover what they open.

Great post.

Chris said...

switching from lurkmode to say that i everything about this post could be taken straight from my own chronicles. i will not say how long the little metalish ES from my minivan has been sitting on the windowsill ready for the Mr to use his magic gorilla glue. one of these days i will do it and feel very accomplished for doing so. i need to go ahead and throw all the old film away but the thought that it could be baby pictures makes me pause every time i'm right on the verge of dumping the entire drawer into the trash. oh, washing the throw rugs is also one of the things about cleaning house that make me feel very on top of things :-) Love your blog. Returning to lurkmode.

Joey said...

Funny, I just cleaned out my husband's junk drawer, and 3 of mine.

I live in a home like your's. I really need some super glue. A giant size... perhaps a quart of it.

Thank you for reminding of it.

Pearl said...

:-) It would be a good idea to keep those tubes of glue in separate rooms!!

Pearl

June said...

I have put mine in a baggy in the freezer. Muffy's idea seemed like a good one.
And I'm keeping them together in hope that they will breed.

Tamara said...

Oh how you make me laugh!!!

Vicki Lane said...

Much of this sounds totally familiar -- except that I never wear false eyelashes.

Anonymous said...

my microwave broke 12 years ago. I use it as a breadbox.

georgia little pea said...

I have a hubbie like that! Things can go unfixed and undone for MONTHS and YEARS! Then one day, he'll wake up and decide to fix EVERYTHING in one morning. [Yesterday was just such a day!]

Film from 25 years ago? Now, that's hoarding.

SmitoniusAndSonata said...

Almost everything in our house has been superglued at some stage , but the stuff still scares me ,the operator/perpetrator, to death .
I do love the fact the fact that all of you seem to be able to contain all your junk in , at most , a couple of drawers . I envy you all !

Barb said...

My friend uses super glue to knit together the finger cracks that always come with winter and our dry climate. I'd probably end up gluing two fingers together and having to go to the ER. So - I don't really keep super glue on hand. We often keep little nuts and bolts of things in our junk drawer - artifacts that should be immediately tossed. False eyelashes????

Carolynn Anctil said...

I have yet to figure out a way to use Super Glue without sticking my fingers together in the process. Quite alarming, that.

Friko said...

Please don't use the super glue on your false eyelashes.
You couldn't see the keyboard or read blogposts anymore after you've glued your eyelids together.

What did you do with the half-finished tubes of cough sweets you found in the drawer?

JeannetteLS said...

I once tried false eyelashes and one got stuck to my eyebrow because I sneezed when I applied it. I had a HELL of a time removing it. My ex-husband had a theory about slightly broken things: either someone else fixes it, or it's you simply discard. This applied to marriages as well.

I also have a junk drawer in every room. It helps. Furthermore, I have at least one closet that is nearly empty and two empty drawers. When there is sudden company they are useful. My problem with the drawers used to be remembering which drawer had which glue, etc. I now have theme junk drawers. Tools and gadgets. Fastening stuff (Stapler, staples, paper clips, hair elastics, elastics, glue, and, yes, sewing.)

I'd say it works well, but, well... they are junk drawers. Other things breed and find their way into the wrong drawer. sigh...

I do not own super glue. Too dangerous.