Letters From The Loft
Stuff From The Desk Of Chuck Thornton
As you may recall, if you're not me, I had broken a caster on the entertainment center, purchased a replacement caster, and made a note to myself to repair the damage. Apparently, I didn't get the memo, because it wasn't until I went back out to the garage with Ben and Sam to roll the cabinet up to the front door that I remembered that I needed to take the old broken caster off and replace it with the new one while the cabinet was jacked up on the dollies. I also didn't remember Thornton's Law of Home Projects: Anything that brings you into a hardware store will ultimately require at least two more subsequent trips. This law holds true even if you just stopped in to use the bathroom, and it was holding true in the Curious Case of the Cabinet Caster.
Once I remembered that I had to replace the broken caster, I couldn't remember where I had put the new caster that I had purchased the previous week. I was pretty sure it was in the garage somewhere, but the garage was pretty cluttered up at the moment, and trying to pinpoint a specific item was like trying to locate Waldo without his shirt and cap. After searching for a while, I realized it would be quicker to just run down to Lowe's and get another caster.
The place was pretty much deserted; I'm sure most people are doing something on Friday nights that doesn't involve bolts or spackle, and I was grateful that there were enough hapless schmoes like me to make it worth Lowe's while to stay open past 7 pm. I breezed in, picked up another caster, breezed out, and was soon back home and discovering that I had picked up the wrong kind of caster. I really should have removed the broken caster first and taken it with me for comparison, but that would have involved a level of foresight and common sense that, let's face it, has eluded me most of my life.
So I made another trip to Lowe's, where they were now treating me like Norm at Cheers, and came back with the appropriate caster. It was all downhill from there (not literally downhill, mind you, or we'd still be chasing my runaway entertainment center)... I replaced the caster, we rolled the cabinet back up to our front door on the dollies, scooted it over the threshold, off the dollies, and into the living room. No casters exploded, and we were able to nudge it over our new carpet and into position. Then we crawled to our respective beds, which for the first time in 2 weeks were all simultaneously in the correct rooms. After a week on an air mattress, it was great to be back in a real bed. I could actually shift my rear end without causing my feet to elevate.
The next day I reconnected all the components of my home theater, and soon we were back to clocking 20% of all kilowatts consumed in the greater Los Angeles area. By the end of the day, we had all the living room and master bedroom furnishings back where they belonged. And we all lived happily ever after.
Just kidding. The kitchen still wasn't finished. But here's a picture of the living room, with things back to as normal as they ever get around our house.
