And Then It’s Gone...

Here’s something almost all you good people out there will be able to relate to.

It came to pass that, needing something to do between now and saying, ‘Out’ on the twenty third of thingy, I prepared to the garden to smarten-up the garden chairs. This could be taken as a euphemism for too mean to get new ones but, hay, they’ve served us well for the three days each year you can use ‘em for many years.

Anyhoo, after the boring preliminaries it was time to mask-up wot didn’t need spray painting prior to – you guessed it – spray painting the chairs.

Off to the shed for masking tape of which I knew I had plenty as it was only, what, nine months ago I purchased a one hundred foot roll of the stuff, five foot rolls being unavailable, of which only six inches was used at that time.

We now come to the part you can all relate to. There’s absolutely no sign of the roll of masking tape. This phenomena is also known to exist regarding the disappearance of rolls of Teflon thread tape where only two inches have been used.

The search was thorough and actually involved moving stuff in the draws to peer below. Nothing. I did, however, find that broken light fitting I decided, many years ago, to keep because...

Off to the DIY mega shop, buy a roll of masking tape – five foot rolls unavailable so settle for another hundred foot roll of the damn stuff, get home, use the required couple of feet and spray paint the chairs.

And thus we come to the part of the project where magic takes over. When packing all the kit away, you’ll find the new roll of masking tape, less the two feet used – okay, six feet counting the four that, again by magic, wrapped itself round your arms and neck, when you put it in the allotted draw, will sit perfectly on top of the old roll. Yup, the old roll’s back from its trip to other dimensions.

Thus it would seem the only absolutely guaranteed method of finding ‘missing’ masking or thread tape, through magical forces not yet fully understood, is to buy a new roll.

Quote;  Monty Hall.

“I swiftly discovered that there are few things in DIY (and possibly life) that can't be solved with a large mallet, a bag of ten-centimetre nails and some swearing.”