She glanced out the window again at her neighbor. He had been in the backyard since sunrise, working on something that looked like a front-loading washing machine sitting on a low sturdy table. There are odd bits and pieces attached to it and other odd things sticking out of holes in the metal shell. He kept peering into the glass door and then doing more stuff with the various attachments.
Going back to her house cleaning, there was a sudden huge noise from his direction. Zzzzzount! The electricity went out.
This wasn’t the first time something he did had caused a power outage. She stepped out into her own backyard to see the man slowly getting up off his backside and facing the now smoking contraption.
She spoke in a half-weary demanding voice. “What did you did this time, George?”
Dusting himself off, he turned to face the ruins of his machine. “I was trying to open a temporary hole in the space-time fabric.”
She didn’t look too impressed. “George, most people don’t even say such things, much less try to do them. Why the hell do you want to mess with something like that?”
The contraption was still a bit too hot to touch, but he was trying to see inside the glass door. “It was time for an oil change, but someone must have glued to filler cap on, because I couldn’t get it off. I figured if I could just open a temporary portal I would pour the oil in and hope for the best.” He patted a gallon jug of automotive motor oil on a workbench next to him.
“George! You idiot! Everyone knows that’s the wrong type of lubricant for it. No wonder you couldn’t get it to work.”
She turned and strode back into her house in a huff, leaving George to stare after her with a look of amazement on his face.
Nice story!
Slightly related: I just yesterday and today tried to develop an efficient process/method for cleaning my bike chain (off the bike). I’m not trying to open any holes anywhere (hopefully), but I’m using a box and degreaser plus some shaking and a dish brush to wash the chain clean. Surprisingly to me the chain got rusty after rinsing with water so now it gets lubricated with WD40 afterwards. Although I pondered my options regarding various lubes. When in bike I use the wax emulsion based Squirt Lube which doesn’t attract that much dirt in the first place but…
Feels a bit ridiculous using this amount of time to just clean the chain (which is pretty cheap), but at least you have kind of accomplished something – and its clean. Plus it’s interesting to see how much further you get with a clean clean until it gets streched too long.
Based on the the economics and the hassle-factor, I concluded that there was no need to take the chain off for cleaning. I use a gadget that allows the chain to run through brushes and a small pool of cleaning fluid while still on the bike. I use that every three months. The rest of the time, I just use a special lubricant that is designed to evaporate and leave behind a dry lubricant based on Teflon particles. Every 100 miles or so, I wipe the chain with a terry cloth, drip a small amount of lubricant onto the entire chain and wipe again. That works out to every third of fourth ride.
Yup, of course there’s reasonable cleanliness and “let’s make a hobby out of this” level of cleanliness. But I’ll try to not let this latest chain cleaning interest/obsession take over my life. Entirely.