Adhesives hate me.  No matter how they’re ‘guaranteed to stick’, I’ll somehow create a situation in which they won’t.  Or they’ll stick exactly long enough to lull me into believing they’re set, and then fall apart.  Or worse, they’ll create an unbreakable bond at the wrong moment, in the wrong place, and with the most unpleasant consequences possible.

Take Crazy Glue, for example.  “Glues Anything!” they shout.  “Super Strong!  Bonds in Seconds!”

Maybe that’s true for everybody else, but not for me.  They don’t call it Crazy Glue because it’s crazy-strong; they call it that because it’s guaranteed to make me crazy in short order.

I carefully peruse the instructions.  Prepare all the surfaces as directed.  Apply the glue, hold the pieces together…

And hold.

And hold…

Five minutes later, I’m still holding the damn thing and it’s still not stuck.

Apply more glue.  Repeat the process.

Nope.

Then, after the third attempt, it finally sticks… long enough for me to breathe a sigh of relief and gently, carefully, place it on my workbench to cure.

Then it falls apart.

If I’m smart, that’s when I quit.  But I’m not good at admitting failure.

So I try one more time.  By now glue is oozing out of the joint and it sets up like stone, creating great gobs that are far more durable than the original material.  So there’s no way to clean it off without damaging the item (farther) beyond repair.

I don’t have any better luck with other products.

Shoe Goo is supposed to be ideal for repairing boots or shoes (unless you’re trying to repair hiking boots that have been waterproofed with mink oil).  Tuck Tape will stick to vapour barrier without fail (unless you’re outside in sub-zero temperatures trying to rig up a plastic shelter to keep the snow off your grapevines).

A few days ago I tackled a simple project:  mount a 2’x3’ poster on a painted wall.  I asked Hubby for some of the sticky poster-putty he’d used (successfully, I might add) only last week.

Putty in hand, I eyed the poster.  It wasn’t thick or heavy, but it had a glossy finish.  Already I sensed impending doom.  But I squished it onto the wall, hoping for the best.

By the time I got to the fourth corner, the first one was already peeling off.

Not off the glossy poster.  That would have made sense.  No, the putty was peeling off the painted wall, where it should have stuck.

I tried again.

Failed.

Fine.

Got out the masking tape and taped the poster to the door instead.  Done deal.

I’d walked a whole ten paces away when a derisive whisper reached my ears:  the sound of a poster slithering to the floor.

The masking tape had let go of the door.  It bonded permanently to the poster, though, so of course it wrecked the edges when I tried to peel it off.

But wait! I will wrest triumph from the jaws of defeat!

I’m gonna wash down my door and walls, bottle the result, and sell it to politicians in a fancy canister labelled “Spray-On Weasel Grease – Inconvenient Promises Will Never Stick To You!”

And then I’m gonna NAIL that goddamn poster to the wall.

I anticipate this:

Note:  I’ll be doing website updates over the next several days, so expect some changes around here!  I hope it’ll all be fine, but I never quite know what’s going to happen until I press that final button. If the site looks odd or doesn’t seem to be working properly, please comment below or email me.  Thanks in advance for your patience and assistance!