Duct Tape and Carriage Bolts
I bought a lawnmower in Spring 2022. I had just bought a house in Fall 2021, so it was time to take responsibility for my new lawn. The lawnmower has a collapsible handle that allows the machine to be stored in small spaces. Two curved-head bolts with nuts were included to keep the handle fixed in position.
I did my best to tighten the bolts before I used this mower for the first time, though I think I just used my fingers, not a wrench. Unfortunately, the very first time I mowed, the vibration of the machine (I was mowing thick grass) shook loose one of the bolts, and it fell out onto the grass in the front yard.
I never found that bolt. I have an idea of where it fell, but even though I searched for it, it never shouted “I’m here!” at me from the grass. So I, a DIY-clueless young man who doesn’t keep spare screws and bolts around the house, decided to wrap duct tape (“if it moves and it shouldn’t…”) around the mower handle to keep it in place temporarily.
“Temporarily.”
That duct tape stayed on my mower for about four years—until this past Saturday, when I finally decided to make a trip to Lowe’s and see if they had a replacement bolt and nut like the one that has been serving me faithfully for this long.
Back when I first lost the bolt, I was unaware that Lowe’s sells screws and bolts individually, and I didn’t want to buy a big bag of them. It also didn’t occur to me to check Amazon (*facepalm*). When it comes to tools and handyman stuff, I’ve been hopeless for most of my life. I’ve done service projects, of course, but someone else was always telling me exactly what to do and I was usually wielding a drill, a crowbar, or a shovel.
Surprisingly, Lowe’s didn’t have a bolt to match the one from my mower handle. The worker I talked to at the store said it looked like they no longer carried that specific type of bolt; it was practically the one bolt they didn’t have in stock.
So what did I do next?
I texted my dad, a man who does keep spare screws and bolts around the house. He found two that might work for me. Thanks, Dad!
One was a carriage bolt, and I decided to try that one first. But before I could try it out, I had to remove the duct tape from the lawnmower handle.
To the credit of whoever manufactures duct tape, it was hard to get off. I thought about the fact that this duct tape had been wrapped around the handle of my lawnmower for years, somehow managing to cling on. It crinkled and crumbled a bit as I began to peel it off the handle—parts were still sticky while other parts were crusty and gross.
Fortunately, I didn’t have to peel off the whole thing to reveal the holes that the carriage bolt was supposed to go into. I aligned the holes, stuck in the carriage bolt (it worked!), wound the nut over the end, and called it done.
A simple job that took me four years to complete. Next time I mow my lawn, I’ll do so without wondering if the duct tape will hold!
Sometimes I wonder at myself. How did it take me so long to fix this problem? Why did I not just decide to properly fix it when it first happened? Why did I choose instead to use a temporary solution that was quite literally like using a permanent bandage?
These are the types of things I wonder about as I get older. In what ways can I continue to take responsibility for incredibly simple things (like my recent post about putting away my laundry), rather than just putting them off because I don’t feel like doing the work in that moment?
Here’s hoping my future contains more episodes of me successfully being a responsible adult about the little, mundane things whose importance is easy to overlook.