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 PAST WINNERS The Rusty Wrench Awards, 1997 and 1998 1999 Nominees · 1997 · 1998 · About My Garage Door |
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CLASS OF 1997 Announced Saturday, January 10, 1998. The first Rusty Wrenches. Five categories and one judge who should have known better.
PAINT JOB VISIBLE FROM SPACE: Lorraine, Ohio. Painted the garage floor with high-gloss porch paint because she liked the shine. It is beautiful dry. It is a skating rink wet. Every time it rains, the car comes in, the snow melts off the tires, and her husband has to cross the garage holding on to the workbench. She has since put down a runner. He says it was more fun before. MOST CREATIVE USE OF DUCT TAPE: Anthony, Ohio. Taped a big X across a cracked basement window, then painted the tape brown so it would look like the window had muntins. From the street, it does. From the basement it looks like a pirate map. SHELF MOST LIKELY TO FALL: Nancy, Indiana. A shelf of glass figurines hung over the headboard of the bed, on two nails. In April she moved the bed. The shelf is still up. She says she'd rather sleep across the room than take the figurines down, and the figurines have no comment. PROUDEST LEANING FENCE: Mary, Kentucky. A split-rail fence that has leaned a little further every year since 1991 and now leans far enough that she grows tomatoes on top of it, like a trellis. Best tomatoes on her road, she says, and I've had one, and she's right. THE DRIP AWARD: Sharon, West Virginia. Re-caulked her bathtub. Then went over it again to be sure. Then once more. The tub now holds about two gallons less than it used to, and the caulk is the thickest I've ever seen outside of a commercial job. It does not leak. Nothing could leak through that. JUDGE'S OWN: The Ulrich Garage Door, Ohio. Disqualified by the judge. Reinstated by the judge's wife. See below. |
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CLASS OF 1998 Announced Saturday, January 9, 1999. Six categories, forty-one nominations, and one repeat winner nobody wanted.
MOST CREATIVE USE OF DUCT TAPE: Karen, Pennsylvania. When the handle of her snow shovel snapped during the first storm of the winter, she taped the blade to a broom handle, a curtain rod and part of a hockey stick, in that order, and shoveled her walk and her neighbor's with it for the rest of the season. It is the ugliest tool I have ever seen and she won't sell it to me. Lorraine mailed her the wrench in January. Karen mailed back a thank-you note with a strip of duct tape around it. SHELF MOST LIKELY TO FALL: Timothy, Ohio. Hung the bedroom closet shelf at a height that suited him. He's six-foot-five. His wife is five-foot-one. The shelf has not fallen, but his wife says she might, from the step stool, any day now, and she'd like it on the record that it's his fault. PROUDEST LEANING FENCE: Sidney, Indiana. A fence that leans east all summer and west all winter, from the ground freezing and thawing under the posts. It's never in the same place two seasons running. He calls it "the pendulum" and sets his calendar by it. PAINT JOB VISIBLE FROM SPACE: Elsie, Michigan. Painted her shutters red, white and blue for the Fourth of July in 1998 "just for the summer," and then nobody would help her paint them back. They're still red, white and blue. The neighbors have stopped asking. One of them hung a flag to match. THE BRIGHT IDEA AWARD (first year): Carmen, Kentucky. Put the outdoor Christmas lights on a timer and set it twelve hours off. From the first of December to New Year's, her house went dark at suppertime and lit up like a carnival at four in the morning. The paperboy says it was the best Christmas of his route. Joe's note: Timers are fine. For outdoor lights, use cords and timers made for outdoors, and if you ever need a new outlet outside, call a licensed electrician. MOST STUBBORN DOOR: The Ulrich Garage Door, Ohio. Again. I'm sorry. See below. |
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ABOUT MY GARAGE DOOR Two-time Rusty Wrench winner. A confession from the Chief Judge. I tell people what's wrong with their houses for a living. I want that understood before you read this. 1997. In the spring I put in a new garage door opener myself. It worked perfectly. It also opened whenever the man across the street used his opener, and at least once during a thunderstorm, and one Sunday morning, as far as either of us could tell, on its own. I'd come out to get the paper and find my garage standing open to the neighborhood like a mouth. Jewell nominated it. I disqualified it, as the judge. Jewell reinstated it, as the judge's wife. It won. 1998. In February I got a new opener with a different code, and that cured the neighbor problem. Now the door goes up fine and stops two feet short of the top. I'm six-foot-two. I have ducked under my own garage door every day since February of 1998, and I've hit my head on it eleven times that Jewell knows about. She nominated it again. I disqualified it again. You can guess the rest. It is not entered for 1999. Jewell says that's because I finally fixed it. I'd like to say that's true. The truth is I've gotten very good at ducking. Joe's note, and I mean it: The springs on a garage door are under a great deal of tension and can hurt you badly. I have never touched the springs on mine, and you shouldn't touch yours. For anything past the opener's remote, call a garage door company. |
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<< The 1999 Nominees Nominations and congratulations: [email protected] Last updated Friday, September 24, 1999 |