The Junk Drawer

I’ve been writing The Junk Drawer for almost three years now, and if you’ve been around a while you might assume a few things about me as a humor writer.

You may think that ….

1. I was a class clown. Hardly. In fact, I was painfully shy in school and afraid of my own shadow. I never told funny jokes, never made people laugh at crazy antics and I certainly didn’t want to be the center of attention. Too much pressure and I didn’t want anyone looking at me anyway. If you need me, I’ll be over here hiding in the corner.

2. Humor writing comes easily to me. Occasionally it does, and I’m always grateful when that happens, but many times I struggle to “funny up” a piece I’m writing. I’ve buried many a post over the years. Stories I thought would be humorous wind up falling flat, I kick them to the curb and start over with something else. People often say humor writing is a skill “you either have or you don’t,” but I say it’s a matter of degree, it takes work and the perfect piece doesn’t just write itself. Also, I don’t know what a perfect piece is. I’ve never had one.

3. I’m hilarious in-person. The fact is I don’t consider myself very funny in-person. I do better with the written word. My husband is the funny one, the expert joke-teller, the life of the party. I am a wallflower, content with soaking in my surroundings and watching other people be interesting and funny. I am not a laugh factory.

4. I always look at the lighter side of things. True, I do like to find humor in everyday things, but I’m a serious person by nature. Some might even say too serious, especially at work, where I’m laser-focused on the tasks at hand. But that’s because I have a solid work ethic, thanks to my parents. I’m a worrywart, stress a little too easily and can spend half a day stewing over something innocuous. Finding the lighter side means I first have to blast all the negativity out of my head. I admire people who ooze sunshine despite their burdens.

5. I gravitate to humor and comedy in books and movies. The majority of books I own are non-fiction and decidedly unfunny. Some examples are Salt: A World History, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers and Museum: Behind the Scenes at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Nary a chuckle in them. I will always pick a documentary over a comedy. At the top of my list is WordPlay, a film about the spellbinding world of crossword puzzles and the eggheads who love them. Riveting!

Put together, these personality traits probably shouldn’t have led me to write humor. But somehow I plopped myself down into this genre and got comfortable. Isn’t it funny how that works?

We have a winner! Stephanie Barr guessed yesterday’s What’s That item correctly, though not by its official name. She described it thusly:

“Looks to me like the receptacle for a fastener, like a snap or a rivet, where you pound the fastener in and it’s deformed by this receptacle into the right shape.”

For the record, the object is called a dapping block.

The item belongs to a friend of mine who makes handwrought sterling silver jewelry. She says “Each side of the steel block has a different size indentation.  Metal is placed on top and another tool is hammered into it.”

Here are some pictures showing the object in its entirety, along with the other tool that is used with it.

Thanks for playing this week’s What’s That! I expect to have another one next week, so keep your eyes peeled.

Congratulations, Stephanie! I’ll contact you shortly about your prizes.

Today’s What’s That item comes with not one, but two, hints! I’m so generous.

Hint #1: It doesn’t belong to me.

Hint #2: It is always used with a second object not pictured here.

There. Wasn’t that super helpful?

How to play:

1. The photo shows a small portion of a larger object.

2. First person to guess the object wins a Junk Drawer magnet and your choice from a fine selection of novelty bandages. Nine out of ten clown doctors say that novelty bandages work better than regular ones.

OK, so here goes. What is this?

And now for that FYI:

I’m leaving Entrecard in a few days. If that’s how you usually visit The Junk Drawer, please consider bookmarking me or subscribing to the feed. I’d love to keep you as a regular visitor.

You can always find me over at Tribal Blogs and on Facebook, too! Stick with me, will ya?

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CONTEST CLOSED! We have a winner!

Today a laptop was delivered to me for virus/malware removal. Before I got started on my work, I wanted to clean the laptop because the screen was kind of funky and so was the keyboard.

I spritzed a little cleaner on a cloth and wiped down the screen and then went all crazy on the keyboard.

A little too crazy.

With one quick swipe, the CAPS LOCK key went sailing.

Cray-ap!!!

Keys on regular USB keyboards are pretty easy to snap back on, but laptops are a different animal.

Why?

Because this is what the the underbelly of a laptop key looks like.

Ridiculous, huh?

I tried everything.

I Googled how to replace keys on the make and model of this particular laptop. I did find one link, with pictures and everything, but this key mechanism looked nothing like the pictures.

And so I sat there for half an hour studying it, trying eighteen ways to get it to clamp down.

I figured that the two thin metal pins went through the holes on the left and right sides, as shown above. That much seemed straightforward.

But that white thing above it that looks like a tiny toilet seat needed to hook over a very small metal anchor on the side closest to me. But no amount of fiddling or carefully applied pressure would get it to snap on!

I enlisted the help of my co-workers who tried for a few minutes, but quickly gave up.

“You’re screwed. Can’t be fixed.”

Just then, a hardware tech happened into my office and so I showed it to him.

“Oh, that’s messed up,” he says. “Better have Keith (another tech) work on it. He’s great at fixing these things. Better yet, just give me the serial number and I’ll get a new keyboard from Dell and come back to put it on.”

I didn’t exactly want to do that because my client was really short on time this week and I doubted he’d have time allow more work on it.

So I emailed Keith and sent him the picture.

“Is there any way I can fix this myself?” I asked.

“Oh, man. Those are nasty. But if you bring the laptop down, I’ll try to fix it,” he said.

I really wanted to fix the key myself, especially because I’d broken it and felt like a royal doofus. I also since found out that the laptop wasn’t under warranty anymore, so getting a new keyboard would cost money. Money spent that would be my fault.

I finally gave up the fight and called the client. I left voice mail that I’d cleaned the malware off the laptop and also cleaned the keyboard, which resulted in the loss of the CAPS LOCK key. And then I begged for forgiveness and told him that we’d have to deliver the system to the shop for repair and that I was sorry for the inconvenience.

My apologies took up the entire 3-minute voice mail limit before I was unceremoniously cut off.

About ten minutes later the client showed up.

Laughing.

“Kathy, that key has been broken for years.”

And right then and there, my head exploded all over the wall. I gathered up my brain and pieced it back together much better than I was able to reassemble the CAPS LOCK key.

And that was my Monday.

How was yours?

I took these pictures in July, 2008 to submit to a fun blog called Ugly Mailbox.

Thought I’d share it here, too, since there’s so much going on at this house.

I remember being scared that the owner would come out and shoo(t) me away with a rifle in hand.

Discuss.