Cav's thread of posting lots of pics but not achieving very much

[Cav]

Well you know how it is, you stare at something every day and you think to yaself, "Self, geez I'm good lookin'."

But I digress.

Today I am going to repair the sliding screen door that the fat gutted dog has ruined.

Exhibit A



I blame the postman.

He comes every day at 1330 hours, oh, for youse dumb ugly BA boys - that's when Mickey's hand is on one and six - and the fat gutted dog lies in wait to attack the postie's throat. She resides inside, usually on my recliner chair where we watch TV together and when she hears the postie she charges off and mangles the screen door on the way as a foretaste to what she will do to the postie.

So I popped down to Bunnings just like every other poor bastard in town who is stranded at home and now has the time to those jobs we have been putting off.

I get some new screen, but not just run of the mill fly screen, I got me the pet flyscreen. We don't have any pet flies, but I reckon this is the just the ticket to keep the fat gutted dog in its place, you know, inside on the couch, with me.

Did you know that Bunnings display doggie doors near flyscreens? Hey, there's an idea, and only eleveney dollas!

Bargain.

I exit the store but only after struggling with 2 x 65 litres of potting mix that is obviously on the list of things to do tomorra that I haven't been told about yet.

Flyscreen - check



And what about that doggie door?

I do a test fit - check.



You can see the excitement on the fat gutted dog's face.

OK, I'm not stupid, well scrub that, I am not too stupid, but I know to remove the sliding screen door I have to adjust the adjuster thingies that hold the runners in place.

Oh, they look a bit rusted, so I spray them with WD40. I dunno if I need a philips head or normal headed screwdriver, so I try both - the adjuster thingies don't budget.

I go to plan B and kick the screen door off its runners. That'll teach it to mess with someone a bit smarter than the average sliding screen door.

OK, the screen on, and if you don't mind a rough-looking job - it looks terrific!



I'll trim those end bits a few weeks later when the mesh has had time to settle, at least that's what I told my wife.

Now to fit the doggie door.



That's when things started to stray from the strategic plan.

You see my military training means that I plan everything in advance. You know the old adage: "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail."

So I mastered the instructions on the doggie door, then ate the paper. No I didn't, that's only a thing they do on the movies.

The doggie door is designed to clamp together on either side of the screen, cut out the middle bit and use that bit to put screen stuff on the swinging door bit.

To see if this was feasible, I used an offcut from the old screen and it came up a treat.

This is the swinging doggie door bit, all ready to go.



"Things are going swell what?" as Monty would say.

Montgomery was the commander of the Eighth Army in the Middle East, and you probably know all about El Alamein and Tunisia and stuff. Just sayin'.

But I digress.

Oh, NO!

I can't clamp the two sides of the doggie door outline together. Well I can, but with just the slightest touch, they fall off. The swinging door bit worked OK, so why doesn't the outline bit?

The problem was the fancy fat gutted dog proof doggie screen - it was too thick and I couldn't clamp the two bits together, well I could if those plastic lug thingies didn't fall off.

What a bastard.

I should go back to Bunnings and do a Russell Crowe - you know, the phone wouldn't work in his room so he took it down and threw it at the bloke down in reception. I think the bloke ducked and the phone missed him.

Eleveney dollas gone to waste.

Change plans.

The door goes on without the door.

Did you know that you may be able to kick the sliding door off its slides, but it is an entirely different matter when trying to kick them back on.

"But where there's a will there's a way." I don't think Monty said that.

So I bashed it on and when it was pretty close I went into the kitchen to get a leveraging-on-tool for door sliders - one of the wife's good silver knives, they are stronger than the cheap ones.

Job done.

Take that you fat gutted dog.



I dunno about you, but I rate the success of a project based on the number of bits left over when I'm finished.

The lesser the number the better. I only had one bit left over.



I'll hide it somewhere so that you know who will never find out.

That just leaves me with one more thing to do.