My barn project was on my mind. I made a mental list of what I needed: hammer, battery drill, screws, tape measure, nails, flat crow bar/nail thingy remover, monster screw driver to help reverse the gate hangers and move the gates in the barn.
I have a closet that I keep the tools in I use. WELL, somehow they have grown feet and walked away. The screw driver batteries are dead, my bit I needed was not there. The crow/pry bar, and even my hot pink measuring tape was gone.
Okay, no problem, I will run a cord to the barn, use the electric drill, use a yard stick and proceed as planned. This will work and I can use my electric saw too since I have to run a cord anyway. It was not meant to happen! No electric drill in sight! By the time I had charged my batteries on my cordless, I had said, piss on it (excuse me) and put all my partial supply of tools back in their appointed spots.
If you have not guessed, I am married to a scatterer! He has scads of tools, he has a shop of tools, but he doesn't know exactly where his are so he comes to the tool closet because they are organized and easy to find. Does he return them, heck no!
I request the return of the closet tools and he insists they are his. May I borrow them? Don't know where they are, ARGGGHHHH!
I think I will give him a list of tools I need and he shall have a week to gather them. I am not asking his help in this construction but I do want my @##@% tools. (Don't know what that bad word was, I just like doing that)
I was thinking about putting up a voting bar on the side with suggestions of what I should do to him and let you vote, but I have decided against that because that would be absolute proof of premeditation to any harm that might befall him.
I am open to suggestions. The pink tools worked for awhile but not anymore. I think he can see them better. If I am to do any projects, I must have tools! Help!
18 comments:
I know exactly what you're going through. My DH is not only a scatterer, but he takes all my house tools all the time.
I tried getting all pink tools, but that didn't work. You're lucky it's just tools. I can even keep my broom in the house. I finally got one that is so short it makes his back hurt so he leaves it alone.
So unless we're willing to toss them all over the cliff, you'll just have to bear it with the rest of us!
I got it. You should scatter the food contents in the kitchen and when he wants something to eat, he'll have to forage through the house and barn.
I love Autumnforest's suggestion.... OMG, I am rolling laughing here, I love your post.
For me, it's the nail clippers. His are always missing... I first noticed I didn't have any (and I have two pair!) last year. When I complained about it, one of mine miraculously reappeared in my drawer a few weeks later. But never fear, they came up missing AGAIN a few more weeks down the road.
He picks them up and carries them out to the car, the truck, god knows where. I'm ready to buy a new pair FOR ME and hide them. I was shocked when mine came up missing, because I didn't even know that HE knew where mine were!!!
I have my own tool chest with a big fat lock on it : )
LOl I cant say anything because I am the scatterer(is that a word?) in this household... Lol.. He has it all so nice and neat and soooo easy to find! Haha... I leave them on the fence post hanging or in the barn hanging from something..... I try to be organized but some how it gets all messed up...
I always got in trouble in school for my messy books BUT I always had my papers! Before the kids with all the organized folders could!haha
But I like the scattered food suggestion.. My brother is a super organizer and so is my mom.. We are surrounded.. But my dad is like me!Lol We have all sorts of useful things.. just have to find it..
Geez, who doesn't know how this feels? When we moved in together, he had a box with old, worn-out tools and I had a shiny box with almost-new tools, all sorted and put in their right spot and everything. And he started using my tools (which is okay) - and didn't put them back. And I would need something and have to hunt it down.
Now, the BF is still young and impressible. This means, after telling him for about several dozen times (I am exaggerating), he managed to put everything back in its place. In return, he gets to keep the shiny new tools in his room, so he can boast to his friends (the last thing, I made up. But he is really happy I let him keep everything in his room, since they are "man tools". Argl. (^v^) )
The only way I can come up with to teach him would be - I assume you have tried telling him in a friendly way again and again and again... - to make a big deal of it. Every friggin' time. And again.
(Or you could start hiding his things every time he borrows your tools and doesn't bring them back. Which sounds very childish, but might work nevertheless.)
I would put a lock on the closet after I made sure I got all my tools back. Make that a combination lock, so he won't find the key.
OMG Too funny!! We have had so many "Big" fights our entire 34 years together over tools, the drill charger or the charger for his hunting light. I always told him "That the last time "I" went coonhunting I left it where I found it!" hahaha.
I think we are both the culprits but I tried the pink tools and he says he's not too macho to use a pink hammer! I bought myself a chainsaw last year that was just my size so he would not be bothered with such a tiny one. Ha he grabbed it as soon as I got it home and put it in his truck. He said he had been aiming to get one of those cause it would be handy to have with him when he got his big one stuck in a tree!!!!!!
We have so many duplicate tools because we couldn't find something and was doing a project and had to go buy a new one. We have too many outbuildings I guess!! I had organizing the outdoor tools on my cleaning schedule last year but the whole schedule went out the window somewhere along the way!!
I have given up on this fight and learned that we will always fight over where the other one might have left it.....cause it is "always" the other ones fault!!!!!!!!!!!!
And here I thought I was the only one this ever happened to!
I have my own little "work shop" in the back porch - he has an enormous free-standing shop (large enough for his log-hauling truck AND the tractor..... when it's tidy!) but he is constantly borrowing my tools! HIS tools are 'seeded' all over the farm 'cause he uses them for whatever (fencing, fixing the tractor, etc.) then drops them to continue what he was doing when he broke down.
I have finally learned to go along to help him in order to gather everything up and bring it back!
(and don't get me started on his penchant for losing his gloves!!)
Your post cracked me up - thanks for the smile!
A good lock on the tool closet. One key.
Ya do know the old Ponderosa sayin, "if a girl wants the tools put in their proper place, the girl just needs to put them up herself!" Heeeheehe! It's a guy thing baby!
God bless and you get to feelin' better!
Ok, these comments are so funny! And I thought I was the only one...my stuff always goes missing - nail clippers are taken to trim the chickens beaks & the cats claws. Nail files are given to the cats as toys. Tools are always who-knows-where. Broom and dust pan are used to sweep dirt outside! It's always the same...
I like the comment about how you should scatter the food & let him find it!
~Lynn
Hide them in an appliance he doesn't use. Mine would never find them in the oven.
What a great topic. I can see this tool disease must hit all households where there is a husband and a wife and tools.
My husband has every tool ever made. He can find none so when he needs something he has to go buy it again. I have a hammer I got from my mother. It's great. It's come up missing a few times but I raise such a fuss he usually puts it back now. I'm not handy with tools so I don't have any. The last thing he did with his electric drill was run it through his finger. I came home one day from the dollar store to find hm standing in the garage holding his roughly bandaged bleeding hand. He put the drill right through his finger. When we went to the emergency room the nurse says it happens nearly every day. Go figure. She only mentioned guys. Blessings. Barb
www.barbwhitti.blogspot.com
I'm thinking that if you should outline HIS BODY on your tool board, and then threaten to use a staple gun to nail his ass up there if he doesn't return your tools to their proper place that that oughta do it, don't you?
Oh I liked Pats idea! LOL..you are all too funny!
How about a cabinet with a lock on it? I used to have that problem with my hammer..a girl needs a hammer..I went and bought my own and ranted and raved that no one should ever touch it...no one ever has..he might just listen to a women waving a hammer around screaming her head off:)
I'm going to have to agree about getting a padlock.
I HIDE my tools! Hubby used to use them all the time, and when I wanted to use something, IT WAS GONE! I did the PINK thing too. But now I have my own tool box, and when "HE" needs something out of it, I use to follow him around like stink on shit, and make sure it gets put back. NOW, He knows better! HE always puts back what he uses now. AWE! The joys of training! HAHA
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