?inanimate? objects

[Barman]

What is it with so called ?inanimate? objects that cause such anguish, frustration and humiliation?

Example #1: I?ve just jet-washed the cars. A jet washer is a yellow pump with a hose to take the water in, a hose to squirt the water out and a mains cable. It should be the simplest thing in the world to operate but every time you turn your back on the bloody thing the cables and hoses are in an inextricable tangle. Then, as soon as you untangle the mess and are ready to go again the hose pops out of the connector and you have to turn the water off to re-connect everything. By the time you have done that the cable and hoses have managed to re-tangle themselves.

Example #2: Have you noticed how it doesn?t matter which way you turn the little wheel on an adjustable spanner ? it is always the wrong way? This is especially true if you are trying to operate the spanner in an awkward or inaccessible space.

It?s the same with my boxes of cables. They?re all neatly separated in their own boxes ? mains, hi-fi, coax, telephone, etc. ? yet leave them alone for a minute or two and they become copper-filled spaghetti that is impossible to untangle.

Experiment #1: Take five coat hangers, lay them neatly on a flat surface and walk out of the room. Return to the room five minutes later and try to pick up one of the afore mentioned coat hangers. Hah! you can?t because in your absence they have magically bound themselves together.

Experiment #2: Hose: Buy the best quality garden hose you can find ? choose the one that guarantees to be tangle free; don?t worry about the cost, its irrelevant. Connect the hose to the tap and walk across the garden with the hose running to water something. I guarantee that as you reach the furthest point from the tap the hose will kink and the water stop flowing.

Don?t even start me on string! Never mind ?how long is a piece of string?? How long before the bloody stuff gets tangled beyond recognition more like ? about two minutes in my experience.

I?m beginning to believe that these objects are not so much inanimate but in fact an alien army waging an incessant war against us.

You have been warned! 

[Misunderstood]

Boxes of cables? Ugh! they used to be my personal Valhalla.  I was afraid to venture anywhere near my (multiple) cable boxes in case I became inexorably entangled by them and die trapped in the garage.

Then I discovered bog rolls!  Coil up those disobedient and spiteful cables and shove 'em in a bog roll tube just leaving the connectors hanging out enough to identify what they are.  For extra long ones, I use kitchen roll tubes and it all works wonderfully. I don't know why I didn't do it years ago...

I can store twice as many cables in a box now as I used to, reducing the amount needed to about er... eight, and even after I have rifled through them to find a cable are still neat and tidy.  The only thing left to do now is categorise them as try as I may I always get certain cables 'belong' in more than one category, always! and keep me perpetually perplexed as to which group of boxes to pull out.

I have had some odd looks from people when snatching their bog roll tubes off them, they don't seen to understand... 

Now if I can sort out the hoses and tubes as well - I may survive sanity....... 

[Barman]

Boxes of cables? Ugh! they used to be my personal Valhalla.  I was afraid to venture anywhere near my (multiple) cable boxes in case I became inexorably entangled by them and die trapped in the garage.

Then I discovered bog rolls!  Coil up those disobedient and spiteful cables and shove 'em in a bog roll tube just leaving the connectors hanging out enough to identify what they are.  For extra long ones, I use kitchen roll tubes and it all works wonderfully. I don't know why I didn't do it years ago...

I can store twice as many cables in a box now as I used to, reducing the amount needed to about er... eight, and even after I have rifled through them to find a cable are still neat and tidy.  The only thing left to do now is categorise them as try as I may I always get certain cables 'belong' in more than one category, always! and keep me perpetually perplexed as to which group of boxes to pull out.

I have had some odd looks from people when snatching their bog roll tubes off them, they don't seen to understand... 

Now if I can sort out the hoses and tubes as well - I may survive sanity....... 

The toilet roll idea appealed ? for about twenty milliseconds. 

During the time that I considered it I glanced at the piles of cable boxes, junk and cables strewn around my office floor ? its just never going to happen and it is better that I face that before I have collected loads of bog rolls. 

I think you are born a tidy person or, um are not - and I fall quite firmly into the latter category.