Thursday near the end of the business day, the heel of my co-worker's dress boot snapped off. She takes the train, which is about six blocks away, and she didn't have any other shoes with her.
But -- I have tubes of super glue in my desk drawer -- and a bottle of methyl alcohol to clean the gluing surfaces --
and I happened to have a pair of bar clamps at work that I was re-sellilng (at cost) to a co-worker) (AU$10 for the pair -- and they're actually decent quality; from Aldi).
So, I cleaned, glued, and clamped the boot heel.
Prior to this, I got a clean bin liner from the stash at the bottom of one of the wastebins, cut the end off to make it a tube, then cut down the side to make it a plastic sheet (to protect the table I was using as a workstation).
Because the sheet ended up being excesively large (relative to the size of the table) -- and because I'm paranoid about getting superglue on my skin (e.g. fingers stuck together), I cut some of the plastic sheet from the end, and used rubber bands to make plastic "mittens" to protect my hands.
Seemed to work: I asked her about it the next day, and her heel had stayed attached for the entire trip home.
(A learning: in addition to gluing the flat heel surfaces together, there were two spikes that protrotruded from the boot, and two corresponding holes in the heel -- so I also drizzled some glue down the holes, and onto the sides of the spikes: I figured they probably helped to hold the whole assembly together.)
I didn't get to use it for this -- but I have a small tool kit that I've kept under the desk of everywhere I've worked since 1998 -- just in case someone has a screw or a bolt that needs tightening, etc. And I have WD-40, duct tape, a ball of twine, and some other stuff in my desk. Including the super glue.
--GG
Labels: my traits, problem-solving, tools
