A Sticky Situation

/ Diane Henders

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:

nailed cartoon small

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!

61 thoughts on “A Sticky Situation”

  1. Pingback: A(nother) Sticky Situation | Diane Henders

  3. I am so not a happy camper right now. I can’t take time to read all the neat comments as I am limited to just 2 or 3 sessions of reading and/or computer time, at 15 minutes each, a day for an unlimited time. Severe eye strain is what the doc calls it. Constant filming, watering, redness, swelling, all the things that keep me from focusing. Aarrgh! I had to stop in and read your latest tho’ Laughed myself silly. I have the exact same problem with sticky things.
    Book 11 is just wonderful, even if it will take me a while to finish it at the rate I have to read for right now. Your are brilliant! You’ve added so much depth to all the characters, things that give them the vulnerabilities that we “normal” people have. I have had the tissue box out already, and not just to blot the film away! Loving the soft side of Arnie, the hurt in John’s heart, and the new Stemp! Wow! Spider is, and will always be a sweetheart.
    Rats, hubby is pointing at his watch, showing me the clock and in general, seriously ticking me off! Take care and maybe I can slip in and read a couple of comments at a time. I get a kick out of the posters.

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    • Oh, your poor eyes! What an annoying (and scary) thing to experience! I’m sorry you’re going through that. My old Kindle DX used to have a text-to-speech function (though my new Paperwhite doesn’t – grr). If you’ve got that on your Kindle, it might ease your eyes a bit.

      Or, if you want to be able to use your computer more, you can activate the built-in screen reader called Microsoft Narrator. Then you’d be able to hear instead of read all the great comments! (And you can surf the ‘net with it, too – it’ll read any browser text aloud.)

      If your Kindle doesn’t have the text-to-speech function, you can also get your computer to read your Kindle books to you with Kindle for PC. All you have to do is load a text-to-speech plugin from Amazon after you activate Narrator. (I know this sounds scary-techie, but don’t worry, it’s not that complicated – I’m including links below. There’s probably a Mac version, too – let me know if you’re on Mac and I’ll see what I can find.)

      If you’re on a PC, step one is to activate Microsoft Narrator. Here’s how: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-ca/windows/hear-text-read-aloud-narrator

      And step two: Here’s how to get Kindle for PC to read to you once you have Narrator activated: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200596280

      I hope this helps, but more to the point, I hope your eyes get better soon! Take care – sending healing thoughts your way.

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  6. You pretty well nailed it as far as the adhesive properties of Super Glue. It does have its uses, but none that commonly occur in your basic household. It does stick fingers and skin together very well, however. We had a philandering attorney in town many years ago who came home from a night out and passed out in bed. His wife super glued his penis to his leg and later filed for divorce. The good folks in the Emergency Room managed to unglue his wayward appendage.

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    • The first time I ever heard of the so-called super glues was with the introduction of the Sorceress racing biplane around 1970. A radical, all-aluminum beauty that set the air-racing world on its collective ear. The plane had ‘way less than half the rivets it ‘should’ have had, according to the ‘experts’ but that was because the rivets only served to hold stuff in place while the super glue cured completely. The designers went through hell with that little rascal, but they won everything in sight until their bird was legislated out of compliance with rules changes. ‘Twas ever thus, no?

      One of the famous lines the designers used to defend their innovation was, “You can drill out every rivet in the plane and it’ll still be stronger than anything that’s ever flown! It’s the GLUE that holds it all together anyway!” As I understand it, many such arguments with various rules committees almost came to blows.

      The Sorceress is now resting in a museum, still as gorgeously sexy and outrageous as it ever was. It’s worth a look. Beautiful, viciously aggressive, and faster than anything it ever flew against.

      Another tidbit about super glue is the rumor that the first medical use for it was by Mt. Everest climbers who found that scratches and scrapes and cuts would not heal at high altitudes because blood needs atmospheric oxygen to clot properly, and there ain’t enough ‘way up there. So some climber daubed a little super glue on a cut on his hand, and it stopped bleeding instantly. Then, after the climb and back at a reasonable altitude, the healing process cranked up, and the super glue fell off when it wasn’t needed any longer.

      Dunno if that’s true, but it’s still a good story. 🙂

      So the penis-to-the-leg story is perfectly plausible. Er, so I hear… 🙂

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      • I think they actually use super glue in emergency rooms now instead of sutures for some applications, so I’m sure the Everest story is true. I’m not sure I’d trust the biplane, though – in the first place, with my luck the whole thing would fall apart in the hangar; and in the second place, I wouldn’t trust the stability of the bond under exposure to UV and strain fatigue. But then again, everything I build is over-structured to the point of being ridiculous. There’s probably a reason why I don’t design/build aircraft. 😉

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        • You’re right Diane, it’s super glue to the rescue in the ER, also called Nu-Skin of all things. A rose by any other name. We were using it there when I was working ER back in the 80’s. Particularly useful to glue scalp cuts back together! Thought about using it on hubby when he cut his hand last year but decided against it, which was a good thing. He needed 11 stitches!

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    • What a great story! I love the creative thought process on the wife’s part, but I wish I’d been there to advise her. If I had, our philandering attorney would have had his hand glued in place, fully wrapped around his (undoubtedly inadequate) penis. Much trickier to unglue, and much more amusing for the onlookers. Mind you, it would be tricky to accomplish without waking him, but holding down philandering husbands while justice is done is what true friends are for. 😉

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      • How does that saying go? Something like, “…but a great friend helps you hide the body.” Or maybe it was, “…snaps the handcuffs on until the superglue cures.” Could go either way, I guess. 🙂

        The Sorceress was held together with hardcore aerospace stuff. Hardware store Kwik Bond, Crazy Glue, et.al., are but a dim reflection from what I have heard. Dunno if the original stuff is even still available. Haven’t heard of anything like it in years. Then again, I haven’t kept up with that sort of thing like I used to, either.

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  8. Great cartoon once again, Diane!
    Your post reminds me of the time I tried to ‘stick up’ a bookcase using an adhesive called No More Nails (not sure if you have that where you are). It stuck perfectly above my bed, so I left things be and nipped out for a few hours. When I returned… yep, the thing had fallen off the wall and was resting on my pillow.
    A lucky escape, if you ask me! Oh – I didn’t persevere with this little project.

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  9. I was certain the story would include when the Krazy glue finally stuck and your finger was attached to your forehead. LOVE the cartoon and I hope the wall collapse was not in the true sequence. Good luck with the site. I can appreciate the keeping fingers crossed anticipation.

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    • Thanks, Sue! I got the font updated today… baby steps. 😉 And I’m so freakishly paranoid about accidentally gluing miscellaneous body parts together that there’s almost no chance of it ever happening. (Says she, blithely invoking the vengeful spirits of Murphy’s Law.)

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              • When my wife and I were still in high school and dating, I got her a bottle of White Shoulders perfume for some occasion early in our relationship. The occasion escapes me. Anyway, she loved it, and took it with her on a family vacation (parents and two younger siblings in a car crammed with enough luggage for two weeks on the road with her dad driving who also hated to stop for anything except gas). The younger sister got into the perfume one night–the first night of the trip, of course–and failed to tighten the cap completely. (My wife’s version. Opinions differ widely to this day.) Naturally, everyone’s clothing reeked of White Shoulders perfume for the rest of the trip. Somehow it ended up being my fault. Durr.

                After we were married, she ended up with that same suitcase. (I sense a conspiracy amongst the other females in the family.) Years later, it still smelled of White Shoulders. We finally donated it to a community garage sale or something. And promptly moved to another state.

                Since then, my wife’s been buying her own perfume…for almost fifty years.

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                • I wonder if white shoulders is a bit like white musk, I used to love it almost bathed in it in my youth but now the smell really turns my stomach.

                  I’m convinced one day my dad will ask my to stop buying him lynx, or my mum will I’ve bought it for him since I was a teen, and at least 20 yrs later I still buy it for him, not the same one, I buy different smells each time just to be different but being single I still like the smell as I only smell it occasionally maybe it would be different if I smelt it everyday

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  10. I don’t struggle so much with the adhesive taking hold, I struggle with not getting it on my fingers. Crazy Glue dried on the skin is annoying. Nail polish remover helps get it off, but then my hands smell icky. I’m nothing if not a klutz.

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    • That’s another thing about the Crazy Glues of the world: I’m so paranoid about accidentally gluing my hands (or some other part of my anatomy) together, I always wear gloves and treat it like sweating dynamite. That may have something to do with my failure rate, too. 😉

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  11. 😀 Sounds frustrating for sure….. I’ve always used the saying, “I’m mechanically inclined; I screw up everything!” Because that’s the way I roll! 😀 😀 😀

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  12. I used to buy the biggest bottle of super glue available, but I’ve learned since that the stuff definitely has a limited shelf life. Eventually, the stuff will devolve to the point where it’s nothing more than a smelly but inert liquid.

    I use straight pins to hang most lightweight things. For everything else I just grit my teeth and nail it up.

    Did I mention that I have four and a half decades of wall touch up experience? (No, down a little. Now left. No, back up. No…)

    🙂

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  14. I know how you feel, I’ve had the paint/wall paper peel off when whatever decides to fall.

    Try as I might things would fall just as your dropping off to sleep in the quite, if I was Aydan I’d have blown holes in lots of walls. These days tend to put things in frames and nail them to the wall, so far that behaves mind saying that I still have something to put on the wall I’ve just not got round to it yet, partly as it needs clever jiggery-pokery to put it up its landscape not portrays so two hooks to hang from and I’m no good with making it straight. I’m blonde and no matter what I try my DNA things its not going to be straight and doesn’t end up straight.
    Even measuring doesn’t work, I have two slim mirrors on my fireplace wall in my sitting room, and one is higher than the other it looks cool though but I had someone else show me where to hammer the nails and the blonde DNA made one higher than the other and 10yrs later I’m still living with them at different nights, and I painted the room again last year and rehung them.

    I’m up to book 8 again, more books delivered from Poland this morning book 7 & 8. Just waiting on 4, 6 and 10 in paperback, so I will be enjoying book 11, over Easter as I should finish 8 tonight and the rest before the end of Easter.

    I’m loving re reading them Diane, I’m deffo Team Hellhound all the way this time, I just see the relationship better between them. I’d have Kane for me, OK I’d have both Kane and Hellhound for me, possibly with Doug on the side though that might be odd hehe.

    Ok crumpets are calling me now, I hear the chant of my name.

    Happy Easter too all, don’t eat too much chocolate

    Love and hugs
    Karen XXX

    Ps hope the funeral went OK I assume it would have been this week, sending positive thoughts

    Liked by 1 person

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    • Thanks, Karen – we had a really nice family gathering.

      I laughed at your travails with the pictures, and it’s nothing to do with being blonde. I don’t know how many pictures I put up using straight-edges and levels, only to discover they’d done something weird with the mounting hooks and everything was messed up after all. It’s not our fault – it’s the evil framers! 😉

      I’m so thrilled and flattered that you’ve bought the paperbacks and you’re enjoying your re-reads – thank you!

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      • Your are so welcome, your books are a true joy to read, I love the black covers they look great on my bookshelf.

        I will be trying to hang the picture this weekend, you might hear the blue air all the way to canada.

        Oh and is it just me or does anyone else have dreams of Aydan, Kane and the gang while reading the books? For the past couple of weeks I’ve had dreams filled with them.

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