Cousin Ollie and the Big Red One

Another story in the continuing saga of my Cousin Ollie. Not the sharpest tool in the shed. And speaking of tool sheds...

There was this time Ollie went to clean out the garage at Mom's farm. That shed was a tiny space, barely room enough for the little station wagon that was parked with its bumper against a big metal work table and the tall red tool chest. You know, the big industrial kind on wheels.

Mom's husband, Bob, tended to leave his tools scattered from here to Kingdom Come, so Ollie was helping out by wandering around, gathering up armfuls of tools, and putting them in the appropriate drawer. It wasn't long before he had every drawer open and a whole lotta tools gathered.

And that's when it happened.

While Ollie was bent over picking up some escaped wrenches, the big red box with open drawers finally overbalanced and started teetering on him. He heard it coming and made leap under the big steel table. It probably saved his life, but then he was trapped under the table, his forehead pressed so hard against the station wagon bumper that the Wisconsin license plate logo was imprinted on it for a couple days, and his plumber's crack held a full set of sockets.

That toolbox weighed in at about a ton, even with half the tools spilled out, and Ollie wasn't exactly in a position to exert much leverage. It took him nearly two hours to figure out how to push the drawers in with his feet until he could crawl out the tiny hole he'd made.

It only took Bob about two minutes to screw the toolbox to the wall (after he laughed himself sick). Poor Ollie. But he did manage to find a set of Allen wrenches Bob lost a couple year's ago under that table.