Your Wife And Your tools

[Glanceblamm]

Do any of you have any problems with your wife & your tools?. I learned quickly as one of my ˝” drive ratches came up missing (for about a month) cause she thought she heard a noise one night while I was on shift and went and got it for self defense.
I caught her another time shortly after this using a ratchet to pound a nail for picture hanging...This was all it took for me to buy a lightweight homeowners set for her use.

It goes beyond this though…if she mowes the yard, anything from snapping the throttle control off on a sapling to grinding the blade on the sidewalk edge to breaking a flywheel key can happen.
Even if all goes well the mower will start making Pa-ca Pa-ca Pa-ca noises which results in myself having to carefully re-adjust the carburation & ignition.
I do most of the mowing and will tell her that the mower does not like her one bit when she volunteers. I swear that mower hates her!

I am also frequently checking her car for noises that are real or imagined…they are real on her part but I cant seem to ever find anything wrong.
I am just suspicious enough of her track record though to keep her away from my truck.
Stay away from that truck, I will tell her…there is nothing wrong with it and I want to keep it that way!

Is this just the hand that fate has delt to me? Do you guys have these problems?
Thanks Ann Landers.

[gwindrider1]

glanceblamm,

That's quite a quandry!  One the one hand, you have a wife who is obviously willing to take on a project her self.  That's not all that common.

On the other hand, she needs some instruction as to how to properly proceed with those projects.  That is not necessarily easy to do, as husband/wife interactions are usually complex.  She might pay attention, and benefit from your teachings, or she might get her feelings hurt, and you could be sleeping on the couch for the next week. 

I think it would be worth a try to teach her the proper usage of tools, but I am glad it's you, rather than me in this situation. 

Good luck, and proceed with extreme caution!

[DalesCarpentry]

I was remodeling a basement one time for a customer and I just finished the drywall. I brought my wife in to clean up the drywall dust and to hep paint. she swept the dust into several piles. Then she grabed my big shop vac to suck up the dust. Well she put the hose on the exaust port and when she turned it on she produced the bigest cloud of dust you ever saw. It was pretty funny at the time.

[gwindrider1]

Gotta love it when you leave a jobsite looking like the "Pilsberry doughboy"!

[DWTim]

With the ex, not so much a problem with tools as the proper application thereof. Once I walked into the kitchen and saw that she had her back turned to the stove with a five-foot-high grease fire coming off the burner. Not sure how one could miss the distinct odor or not notice the heat and light of an unusual columnar fire (that left a brown circle on the ceiling.) Not so much that she wasn't using the stove as intended, just that she used the dial like a switch: Either it was off or it was on high with a red-hot coil.

While she could pick to appropriate hammer for putting up pictures, she was not aware that one does not drive nails into 130-year-old plaster. After a couple shattered frames and picking up chunks of plaster off the carpet, I finally said: "Look, just tell me where you want the frames and I'll drill holes and put in some anchors.

She didn't do yard work, so I never had to worry about the equipment.

[KN]

Yard Work?  Lets see, I've lost two swing sets, various yard ornaments and my favorite stereo head phones. You know, the ones you cant possibly find any more. Nope, she's not allowed on the tractor any more.   KN

[Heavy C]

My wife uses everything correctly - most of the time.  My biggest issue is she never returns things to their rightful place.  As a result I can't find the stuff I need.  "What's the big deal?", she says.   

[jpsmith1]

We bought  lawn tractor and my grandmother and wife use it.  I get stuck with repairs.  I have replaced 3 or 4 sets of blades, countless belts, a magneto, and a drive pulley, somehow, my grandmother managed to shred it while mowing, and a blade spindle.  Not to mention countless minor adjustments.

Did I mention that it is less than 5 years old?

[carbine mike]

  Your wife mows the yard,WOW. Wanna trade for a black lab, she fertilizes the yard!

[jpsmith1]

....but then I'd have to mow.   

She started mowing for a break from the kids and just hasn't stopped.  I'm not about to stop her.

[DalesCarpentry]

Boy good for you. I have to mow an arce every week. I wish I could talk my wife into it LOL.

[Glanceblamm]

Thanks for the replies on your own experiences. My own was meant to be light hearted with a small amount of humor thrown in as I was only half serious…or was I 

This problem can also include your teenagers along with your friends taking or borrowing tools that never seem to be returned to their rightful place. Most can be recovered but the bad part is that Schmidt happens. I can especially identify with that big cloud of dust along with plaster & pictures falling…They just cant understand why I get all narrow eyed when they approach my garage.

[cap187]

   Hi all!  This is my first post, but I read this and had to post!

My wife.....  I used to work the railroad where I'd be away from home for days.... she'd get bored.... and decide to clean my shop to surprise me!  What a wonderful experience when I came home!  She had no idea where she had put things, just where they fit, or where she though they should be.

I would spend weeks trying to find the tools I needed.....  I tried not to be mad at her because she was trying to please me, but i thought about strangling her.

[Siskiyou]

One of my best moves was buy my wife her own tool box/kit from K-Mart.  Every Christmas we give each other a list of wants.  A tool box was on hers.  After hearing other adult women talk about tool boxes I realized it was a good move.  When my wife openned the package Christmas Day our daughter told her husband he could get her one of those.

A while back while I was in line at a big box hardware-lumber store, a young woman asked me how to load her caulking gun. 

[jsoukup]

I've lost 2 - 3 pound drilling hammers. I keep catching my wife trying to put finishing nails in the wall with them to hang pictures. Then she hides them. And she has no concept of studs in the wall, and with heavy objects, the nails have to be in the studs.

[Rex in OTZ]

Women like any person growing up have to be taught be they a boy or girl, I know of one nice lady thats a Master electrician, another thats a salvage diver/fishing boat captin, Women have experence in between knowing nothing practical to having forgotten more than I'll ever learn in my lifetime.
Most gals that grew up on a farm or ranch do know which end the combo wrench to use.

Two summers back I had a Male supervisor walk up while my work team was assembling a section of boardwalk we had 2 chalk lines but couldent find them (we were a 3 hour boat ride to town) so we struggled through the Am trying to get done what we needed to do, by that afternoon the chalklines show up back in the tool shed and we really got going! laying out stringer lines and pilot drilling deck screw holes really progressing due the the arrival of the chalklines (they were being inventoried on a tarp out back the tool shed by supervisor guy), he sees those chalky lines on the wood and asks what the red lines are for?? I thought he was jokeing so I jokeinly stated they were for the cooling finns, after wateing a 3 count I looked at him he had a totally confused look on his face!! it dawns on me he never seen a chalkline used before!!!!
My 37 Yro supervisor had never seen a chalk line used before and he grew up in McGrath Alaska!!!
just shows that now matter where you grow up dont assume they know what you assume they should know be they male or female!!