CHINA NEEDS A GOOD Q. C. SYSTEM

THIS IS RIDICULOUS. CAN YOU TOP IT?

Yesterday I decided I would replace the towel bar in the shower. It is brass plated, but the finish was worn and looked kind of shabby. Sandy thought we should replace it. {Works for me.}

So I went to Home Depot and bought a brass finish towel bar that had the same style as original and matches others in the bathroom.

I took down the old towel bar and saw that the wall clips were pretty much standard and looked like many that I had installed over the years in various homes. Oops. First mistake. The new towel bar required that the brackets be installed in a horizontal position and not vertically as were the old ones. O.K. no sweat. I will just have to be very careful and drill four new holes in the Corian shower wall.
Fortunately for me I remembered to check and see if the coach was level. It was not. Had I installed the new towel bar by relying on my spirit level, once the coach was placed into the level position the towel bar would slope downward. Score one for me.
Speaking of slopes. This is where everything started to go down hill.

After installing the new wall clips exactly 18 inches apart, I could not get the two segments of towel bar to attach to the wall clips. The round rod was too long. How can that be, I thought. Well it seems that the Quality Control Department in this Chinese manufacturing plant was on a tea break when my towel bar came down the assembly line. Someone forgot the step where three ¼ inch slits are cut into each end of the round towel bar. If the slits were in place, the towel bar would slide past three little ridges that keep the towel bar from spinning. A nice feature in a motor home where the vibration of driving down the road could cause the round bar to rotate and dump a towel on the shower floor. Now – mind you – I know a wet towel on the shower floor is not a disaster. But it is the principle of the thing. Furthermore, now I had to disassemble everything and go back to Home Depot and look for the same model, but with the slips cut into each end.

The lady at the Returns Desk was really nice. I showed her the instruction sheet and the defective part and she recognized immediately that this was a problem. She even suggested I open and examine the replacement towel bar to make sure I took home one that would work. Seven boxes later and no useable towel bar, so I took them all up front to the Returns Desk, where she again apologized profusely and put a Return To Vendor tag on each of the 8 boxes.

Fortunately, for me there are two Home Depot stores near our house so I went to the other one and found the same product. These also had the correct slots in the towel bar ends and so I bought one and took it home. But this is not the end of the story. This particular tower bar had a totally different system of brackets and would require yet more holes in the Corian. Making it even worse was that the towel bar was supposed to snap into place over the “Easy Clips.” Now, if you are like me, you know that anything labeled “Easy” is never that way.

Not only do I not like snap on towel bars, but I suspected that it would fall off the wall after a year of road use.

Now what do I do. There is a third Home Depot about 15 miles away so I went there the following day. They had the type of towel bar that needs the 3 slots, but the slots were not cut in the ends. By this time I knew that I would be able to make the towel bar work for me by using my hacksaw to trim off about ¼ inch of towel bar. I did just that. I put a dab of adhesive caulk on the edge of the towel bar the goes inside of the bracket. Once the adhesive cures, the towel bar will not be able to spin.

So this little task took me about 4 hours, trips to 3 different Home Depot stores. I think I better go lie down.

MARKING TIME AND WAITING, WAITING

George & Sandie are tired of owning a house. We close on July16. Thank God.

Now for some bad news. One of our dogs got sprayed by a skunk and we made the mistake of bringing her into the bathroom to bathe her. Bad move!!! We have bathed the dog five times and spent $200 on product. The stuff does work, but you have to keep using it. Today we shaved almost all the fur off of Trixie's ears and chest. She has long floppy ears and even longer fur on them. Not any more. That seemed to be the reservoir of stink.

Yesterday I washed our 40 foot motor home. Took me about 2.5 hours. Today I built a sliding tray to fit into the empty storage cabinet under the fridge. Now we can use it a lot easier. First time I've ever done that and it turned out pretty good if I do say so myself.

Our last (thank God) garage sale is July 3. One day only. Out it goes. Two years ago we bought some really nice garage sale signs and now people recognize our signs and come to our sales because we only sell clean stuff that works and is in good shape at really low prices. Only way to go around here.

Next weekend is graduation for our future son-in-law and the following weekend he officially become our son-in-law.

We have sold most of our furnishings. Our living room is empty and we are having 6 relatives for dinner one evening the week before the wedding. But we have a large dining room table with 8 chairs. It's burgers on the grill and brats. Life is getting simpler and we aren't even on the road yet.

We will leave very early in September and will head to Michigan and them to Branson. Can't wait.

TRADING PLACES

In a
few weeks Sandy and I will move out of a 1600 SF single family home and into 300 SF of wheel estate. But first we have to finish the chore of downsizing. That means getting rid of stuff we no longer need or want and holding the final (Hallelujah) garage sale.

Sandwiched among these tasks is a happy event. Our daughter, Jennifer, is getting married to a fine young man on June 27.

The closing on our house is July 16 and a few days before that we will move lock, stock and barrel to a new RV parking pad in Cary, IL.

We hope to take to the open road around September 4.

Be sure come back in September for more rollicking good posts from the Stoltzes in the right lane.