The Pink Jersey

Forgetfulness, it seems, is a rather common condition.  I am one of many sufferers of this infectious disease.  Perhaps it is the ever spreading sleep deprivation that we as Americans seem to enjoy, or the adult ADD that comes along for a ride on the tired train.  Maybe, it is that we are constantly distracted by a million "necessary" technologies in our every day settings.  Or, it could be the hundreds of separate ideas and thoughts racing through our minds at any one time.



I find that I constantly have several ideas racing through different stages of development in my mind almost all of the time.  I like to pretend that I'm some eccentric genius that can't remember every day things because he is to preoccupied with his genius ideas.  Unfortunately, you have to have genius ideas to make that theory hold water.  I have, however, started carrying a small pocket sized notebook to write ideas down as soon as I catch myself getting distracted.  It has been a huge help, and I seem to remember my ideas much more clearly.  It was cheap and I use it all the time!

Idea Notebook and Sausage Fingers!

When I used to play football occasionally someone would remember everything they needed for the day except their jersey.  When this would happen that player would be given the dreaded "Pink Jersey" so that he was forced to suffer the slings and arrows of his fellow teammates for wearing such a pansy-ass color.  We would all laugh at the idiot who forgot his jersey of all things, until the next day when it was someone else.  Occasionally, I was that someone else.  All in all, the "Pink Jersey" (humiliation) was a good device to aid in remembering our gear.

I was reminded of the jersey yesterday.  I went to my sister's house to start the process of finishing her basement.  The task yesterday was pretty simple, build a couple walls, install a pocket door, and get some other walls prepped for drywall that I'll be putting up later this week.  I loaded up all the tools I need for framing into my truck, kissed my daughter (whom I hope will eventually like woodworknig as much as I do) goodbye and headed up the road to my sister's place.

Upon arriving I unloaded my tools, put on my toolbelt and plugged in my compressor.  I went to layout the first set of lines on the floor for the walls and realized that I'd forgotten...dun dun dun....my measuring tape.  There are a lot of tools I could probably do without, or use another tool in their stead.  I really like the less is more tool philosophy but I certainly can't bring myself to practice that concept.  A measuring device is just one of those tools that I just can't do without.  I suppose I could have used a story stick or measured things with my hands or just eyeballed but that doesn't really lend itself to getting things done quickly.

As a result, I swallowed my pride, and asked my sister if she had a tape measure.  She said she did and proceeded to produce this:

This tiny pink measuring tape goes beautifully with my hat choice today!

I will not be forgetting my measuring tape any time soon.

This also got me thinking about what tools I could have done this job without.  While I am a professed toolmonger, a collector of sorts of tools big and small, I will admit that it does not take a workshop full of tools to produce quality work.  A small set of well cared for, basic tools used in the right combination can do just about anything.  It does help though to have motivation in remembering all of them when you need them.  Maybe I'll start making pink handplanes....