And nothing cries dorkshit louder than a tangle of laundry and clothesline lying in the dirt behind the house.
For f*cks sakes!
What was that, the third time? I tell you, that damned piece-of-crap gizmo that's supposed to hold the ends together DOES NOT WORK!!!
After the last time I even went and bought some grommety-type things to back up the gizmo, but to no avail. Mind you it was looking good, but then, not being one to quit while ahead, I had to add my long-departed Oma Lotte's rag quilt, and that was the end of that.
When you look closely at the gizmo you can see there's an element of genius involved. You've got a metal cylinder with a spring-loaded plastic sleeve insert and three ball-bearings. You feed an end of your clothesline into each end of the gizmo, and in theory the spring scrunches the ball-bearings so tightly against the clothesline that the ends won't pull out.
In theory.
In practice, how much this will hold and for how long seems to depend on any number of factors, but I'm thinking wind speed is a big one. As the line, complete with two dozen assorted items of laundry, billows to and fro there is a constant tightening and loosening of the ball-bearings inside the cylinder. With each loosening the line can slip a bit. Eventually it takes that last slip and there you are...
So I've been back to the hardware store and now we've got a super-heavy-duty ratchet-type gizmo securing the clothesline. She's passed her first test already this afternoon, and touch wood, I'm feeling that success is just around the corner.
No comments:
Post a Comment