... today.  You know, the idiot who broke off two nickel steel screws in lead
anchors in a 1920's mudset tile wall, while trying to put up a salvaged
toilet paper roll in his kids' bathroom.

Well, I showed the idiot the correspondance you all sent him and he said he
had never heard of a diamond punch or lead wool (although he sort of figured
that one out - apparently some new invention since he last went into a
hardware store just about the time he drew #2 in the draft lottery.)

But he did think the idea about driving the screws further into the wall was
pretty smart.  So he took out his $30 hammer (the super smooth steel one with
the cushioned, vibra-grip handle - the type of thing they probably showed
under that space-frame at the Erotica 2000 show we just had here in NY) and
also a really beautiful hole punch, made about 1930 (no, it wasn't an ice
pick - he's not that much of an idiot).

He tried pounding one of the screws through and out, but it seemed like it
would start budging only after most of the plaster had fallen off the other
side of the wall.  Then he switched to the other screw, and was making
progress, but that awl picked just that time for catastrophic failure in
cross section.  However, the first inch of the steel shaft did make a rather
neat plug for the hole, so he left that for when you guys all come over for a
beer (or is it Dubonnet on this list?).

Nagging him from somewhere around the part of the brain that he had removed
to avoid the draft was the recollection that someone - maybe ddedge or
RWalter - suggested that you should keep your tools sharp.  This is sort of a
sore subject because this idiot has always agreed in keeping tools in good
order, but he once started to read up on how to sharpen your wood chisel and
keep your drill bits in tune, and the passage on how to oil your stone was a
page and a half all by itself, and he sort of gave up on the whole thing.

But he did have the sense to realize that maybe, after 25 years, his masonry
bits might be just a teeny bit dull.  So he went out to the local hardware
store - the one that sells $150 teakettles designed by famous architects -
and he snuck around to the back counter, and he got a new $3.69 masonry bit
in a plain brown rapper.

Don't tell anyone, but when he got home he just threw out his old masonry bit
(instead of apprenticing for a couple of years to learn how to sharpen it),
and he put that new bit in and wiggled it around the broken-off screw, and
was able to get a new lead anchor in (he forgot to ask them about the lead
wool, but it would probably have been designed by Mario Buatta, if they had
it at all) and got up the replacement toilet paper fixture (salvaged from the
1922 Dodge mansion at 61st and Fifth, demolished in 1976), and now if his
kids smell like they stepped in something even when they don't have their
shoes on, well then they have no one to blame but themselves, and the idiot
wanted me to thank you all very much for the consideration you have shown him.

Friend of the Idiot