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28th
January 2012
Extra,
Extra!
One
day this week, I found myself at a loose
end, with half an hour to kill. Aware
that one of my good friends was at home,
on vacation from work, and feeling the
need to sit down and chew the fat for
awhile, I dropped in to see him.
“How’re you doing? Come in
and have a seat. Make yourself at home,”
he offered, “I’m just finishing
off a small job here. Be with you in a
minute.”
I did as he indicated, taking a seat on
one of the stools in his kitchen.
“Someone’s just asked me to
fix this clock for him, so I thought I’d
have a go at it,” he mumbled, through
lips which were tightly holding on to
a couple of screws and a washer. “He’s
a lover of antique clocks, just as you
are, and knowing how handy I am at fixing
things, he brought it to me so that I
can get the movement going again for him.”
Well, it wasn’t the first time that
I had seen this particular friend of mine
in the process of “fixing”
things: fans, lawnmowers, anything with
a motor. He was one of those people who
seemed to love tinkering with faulty motors,
playing around with them until something
gave … and the contraption in question
finally surrendered, acceded to his superior
ability and agreed to rise out of the
ashes of its dead self, so to speak, and
go on to better things. We’ve seen
it happen before: the Phoenix of old springs
to mind.
I watched him tinker about for another
five minutes, and finally with a grunt
of satisfaction, he indicated that victory
had been achieved.
“There,” he exclaimed, “that’s
it. Now let’s wind you up and see
what gives.”
And as expected, we were rewarded, seconds
later, with a constant ticking, accompanied
by a regular movement of cogs and wheels
within the interior of the clock.
“Good work,” I congratulated
him. “Now I know what to do whenever
one of my clocks goes on the fritz. I’ll
just run it right over to you.”
“Sure enough,” he mumbled,
“and I’ll fix it for you,
no charge.”
Mumbled? Why was he still mumbling? And
seconds later, I found out why, as he
dropped the two screws and the washer
into his hand.
“Hey, wait,” I exclaimed,
“what’s that in your hand?
How come you’ve got those parts
left over?”
“Oh those? They’re not important.
They weren’t really necessary. Look
how the clock’s working all right
without them.”
A sense of deja vu came over me. I had
seen this happen before. The glove compartment
of my car was filled with screws, bolts,
washers and other assorted pieces which
once were part of the motor, but which
were apparently not “necessary”
to the efficient running of the vehicle.
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Why
do vehicle and appliance manufacturers add so
much unnecessary flotsam and jetsam to the products
which they turn out of their factories, for
our use?
One could imagine that somewhere, in a lawnmower
factory, for example, the final worker on the
assembly line is calling to his supervisor and
saying, “Hey boss, this one’s finished,
but look at all of the pieces that I have here,
left over. What do I do with them?”
“Oh no, not again,” says our supervisor,
“the darned parts purchaser has over-ordered
again. I can’t send these back. It’ll
get him into trouble. And me too, probably,
since I’m the one who got him his job
here. That’s the last time that I do a
favour for a brother in law.
“And even worse, if he gets fired, he’ll
turn up on my doorstep with my sister, and I’ll
have to take them in and feed them until he
gets something else to do. Believe you me, if
we go by the last time that happened, I may
just have them on my hands forever.
“I’ll tell you what, Bill, do me
a favour. Stick these extra pieces anywhere
that they will fit without messing up the motor,
and no one will ever be the wiser. That’s
a good boy. I owe you one.”
And that’s how we get all those products
with extra pieces which aren’t really
necessary, and which our local mechanics and
fix-it-men always seem to find whenever they
are called upon to repair something for us.
How else? Don’t try to convince me that
the bagful of screws and nuts which are always
handed to me after a repair job, were essential
to the smooth functioning of the motor. For
invariably, whatever it was that got fixed,
works perfectly when it is handed over to me
by the repairman.
Of course, when it grinds to a halt on Thursday
of the following week, it is because of a new
problem. Nothing to do with the “surplus,
removed, extra, unnecessary” parts, which
are sitting on my dresser at home.
As a matter of fact, when I bring it in to get
the new problem fixed, I’m going to be
the proud recipient of another bag of extras,
discovered in new nooks and crannies which the
ingenious Bill had used to hide the stuff, and
which my fixer-upper person had missed last
time.
In time, I should end up with more parts on
my dresser than in my motor.
By the way, if one of my clocks stops working,
I think I’ll have to try to fix it myself.
Who knows? Maybe Bill didn’t add any extra
parts to this one. Yet I’m sure that my
friend could find some.
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Discuss
Story
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