Freddogg Off The Chain

My non-threaded casters or are they coasters or just plain refrigerator wheels arrived by overnight mail minus two new screws which by Sears Law passed down from the Code of Hammurabi-1780 B.C.-It's Hammur Time-they are not allowed to sell me.

One more time I wrestled with a refrigerator which left a cold spot in my heart. I blocked up one side, removed a screw that called for a nut driver tool not vice grips- but hell, if it works- and began to put on new shiny wheel number one. But the used nut wouldn't catch in the threads of the new wheel because the new wheel came unthreaded rendering it useless.

I was off to Ace Hardware with a refrigerator wheel and old used machine screw in my left hand. The Ace Hardware guy minus the two middle fingers on his right hand-proof he makes mistakes- started to advance all kinds of wrong theories and offer impossible solutions even for a customer with all his digits. I bailed out of the Ace plane and flew down the highway to talk to Appliance Store Service Guy.

He just kept looking at me non threaded caster wheel assembly and saying,"Why did they send you something like that" followed by,"We don't sell Sears products, would you like to stick your head inside a Frigidaire why I turn on the Freon."

This technician wanted me to take a drill bit too big and power it through the smooth opening telling me it may just thread itself- "and then again it may not," I added, taking my wheel and heading out into the high heat where a tornado watch was in effect and it felt like the inside of a dryer which is where I was going next to ponder my unsolvable problem.

Then I remembered my neighbor, Rainman John, who turned the dining room of his house into a shop, we're talking plywood floor,benches and corkboard all around.

John listened to my problem with some amusement then produced a metal case labeled tap and dye set. He made threads like a magician, handed me the appropriate sized nut driver, then followed me to my kitchen because although John would give freely and generously of his time and talents his nut driver wasn't going anywhere without him.

I belly flopped onto the floor and replaced both wheels and I was one happy guy,so happy that I saw myself as Big Loser Guy,a nickname I use for myself when I get happy about things like working refrigerator wheels.

I de-blocked the icebox-and when I pushed it to the left but it would not move. What's wrong with these wheels now,"I screamed.

"You can only push it front wards and backwards not side to side that's the way all refrigerator wheels work,"John said. "I don't know why that's just the way they make them."

Now what good are four wheeled appliances where none of the "Thread them yourself we're busy"-wheels rotate for turning?

This is the stuff they should be teaching in school and my neighbor Rainman John should be a full professor. I remain Special Ed Big Loser Guy more brawn than brains but if you ever need a guy to make a refrigerator moved sideways I am your gorilla.

Freddogg