Drop'd and lost screws, oh don't I know!
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Long ago I learned to never work on anything with small parts over a rug (might as well be a jungle,) -- that the tiny'est falling screw can generate the most remarkable kinetic energy- and bounce off into space (and the attendant Black Hole) with the ease of a minor god. Today anything that remotely approaches such a risk I do with almost as much attention to the possibility of such an accident, as the operation itself - or usually.........usually..............
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I say that, for just this past Fall I forgot my little paradigm.
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We have this neat, old remote group cabin -site'd high in the mountains, way above timberline- at an old mine. Its a great place to watch the evening alpen-glo of the sun that has dip'd below the far western mountain ranges; or to hike their peaks during the day---- but also a place to go to target shoot.
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One weekend a bunch of us went up there to kill a couple crates of clay pigeons. After a day of shooting, I got this wild idea I'd take apart my 20Ga. pump shotgun ('field strip" it, I think is the proper term)-- and clean it.
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This idea may have been motivated by the bottle of Jack Daniels that was pasting around the warm woodstove... the manual dexterity and judgement of a certain party was certainly influenced a by that bottle.
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You can imagine what happen'd next
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------------ it was a small spring that zing'd out into the nether-world-- lost somewhere into the dark myriad of cracks and crevasses of that ancient cabin. I knew approximately where it landed, but even with a group searching with bright pressure lanterns- Nothing.
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Needless to say I was now feeling foolish, and a bit sick to my stomach.
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In my despair, and about to give it up, my friend Barbi said-
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"Let's try one more thing." ...........and she went out to her Jeep and return'd with a battery power'd vaccum cleaner-- a "dust buster."
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She vaccum'd every square inch of that (suspect) area.
Then while we all gather'd around her, she empty'd the contents of the 'buster' onto a piece of newspaper................................
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There was my Spring !
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Today at work we have one of those powerful Shop- Vac's (your tax dollars at work ...
) sitting quietly over in a closet, awaiting its hopefully-never-to-be-call'd upon rescue mission.
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..................CF
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