There is nothing that WD 40 can’t solve of course with a little
help from duct tape. Both together form a formidable team that can be used to
solve almost everything at home.
My first brush with WD 40 was when my dad used it on so many
different things. What is WD40 you ask. Tsch tsch. WD 40 is the amazing spray
in a blue can which when sprayed on anything will make it move or stop it from
creaking. In a home over time everything creaks. Hinges of a door, the stopper
that wont stop, the swinging hinges of a swing, the fan, the rollers…
everything. I remember dad would remove the WD40 can and pssssttt noise gone. Here
is the classic shot of the can. You see the red straw at the side – that is the
thing that goes inside the nozzle and helps you direct the spray appropriately.
My memories of this bottle is always with the straw. Both would be bound
together with a rapidly deteriorating rubber band that half melted and was
brittle thanks to the heat.
The other thing was duct tape or cello tape as its popularly
called. We would have lots of the borwn tape in the house ready to fix almost
everything. Dad was an engineer. He used to have a tool kit around the house
and would love to fix everything. Duct tape was the next thing he would use. Just
tape it and it would be done.
I can picture my dad on a holiday in his jurta pyjama
roaming around the house. Mom would complain about something and dad would
examine it. He would either call for the WD40 or duct tape and then a few
sprays or tears later – presto – its solved.
Just a couple of days back we had a problem at home. Our fan
started giving off a violent noise. A violent creaky noise that would be
difficult to ignore while sleeping. I wondered what had gone wrong. Jasmine
told me that our maid Devki doesn’t reach clean the fan properly. She simply
pulls down the fan blade and dens it while cleaning it. That is the classical
Daniel Kahneman thinking fast and slow problem. Jasmine was thinking fast and
she was jumping to a conclusion. She put two and two together, saw a cause and
an effect and said that Devki must have spoiled it. Possibly the blades are
bent. I wondered if we needed to call the electrician. Then I wondered if the
fan would fall down on us as something as really wrong with it. I don’t why but
I don’t do the ‘do it yourself’ fixing bit these days. I was pretty good at it
in the good old days. But now I seem to have given up that part of me. I don’t know
why but I think mind experiments are getting the better of hand experiments.
So this time I thought let me look at it myself. I tried
aligning the blades. Really rubbish stuff I did. Then I switched the fan on. Still
the violent noise was there. So I played around and tried to think about the
source. It seemed from the hook by which the fan is hung from the ceiling. So I
tried to realign the fan on the hook. It still seemed to be an issue. At varying
fan speeds, the noise would stop and start. I told Jasmine that the noise is
from the top and she suggested WD40. Yes. Did we have it at home? Of course she
said. Wow. I forgot we had the essential ingredient at home. So we took the can
– with the withering rubber band from the bathroom loft (always there) and
sprayed. I felt like dad all over again. A few sprays here and there and a few
more just be sure (like dad again) and we switched on the fan. Poof Noise gone.
Simple isn’t it.
I told Jasmine that there is nothing you can’t solve with
WD40 or Duct tape. Today as I was searching for the WD40 image I saw this image
as well of the flow chart of WD40 and duct tape. It seems the world has gotten
this idea well before me. Hehehe.
Classic isn’t it?
