The (secretly famous) “Sorting Out the Screws Affair”
By Robert M. Katzman © June 20, 2022
So, the only significant argument
I have ever had with
My steadfast construction assistant
The beauteous Nancy
Was over the secretly famous (?)
“Sorting Out the Screws Affair”
*
After asking Nancy to help me
Do this impossible thing
With thousands of screws
Conflict ensued when
Miss Nancy defiantly informed me that,
“You sort screws YOUR way,
And I’ll sort screws MY way!!”
*
Leaving me very confused
Because during all these
Decades of screw-sorting
I naively assumed there was
Only one way to do that
I decided it was NOT worth
Losing the new woman in my life
*
So, I accepted her
(incredibly slower)
Method of screw-sorting
As we sat in my sun-bathed kitchen
Listening to excellent Rock ‘n Roll
From when we were both very young
*
Each of us in our own particular way
Sorting seemingly infinite numbers
Of indifferent black screws
Into six quietly receptive plastic boxes
She was magnanimous in victory
Noblesse oblige
Came naturally to her
*
Since that tense afternoon
Thousands of those screws
Have been efficiently employed
By me in my work
Creating a fairy tale atmosphere
For us to grow old within
Surrounded by birds and flowers
Of every hue in the Rainbow
*
Part of Life, I guess
Is learning when to shut up
and just accept the situation
With humor and good will
Even when it seems
What is so clear to me
May be incomprehensible
To another person
*
Almost exactly two years later, we were married in Racine, Wisconsin. So I think my June 2020 decision was the right one.
We continue to help each other with our projects, like my collection of 80+ birdhouse acquired at endless garage sales.
If i ever run for office, I’ll have the Sparrow vote.
A couple of days ago, I was standing near the top of a ten-foot ladder attempting to straighten out a slender 25-foot tall tree growing crookedly.
I anchored it to a massive old pine tree trunk 20 feet away with waterproof wire and pulled and pulled, but the wind was blowing the tree the other way. No luck.
So, I waited. The next day, the wind changed, blowing toward the pine tree and I resumed the same position and pulled the damn tree exactly straight up. Ha!
See what happens when a person goes with the flow?
Kinda like my poem. Maybe.
At least Nancy was impressed. That was something.
(In case someone, anyone, is really wondering, this was my method of sorting those thousands of black screws:
I treated the great mixed collection of screws as a mass and found it most efficient to spread a flat group of hundreds of them in front of me on a table, then focus only on one size of screw and also remove any other debris from the screws to keep the result clean. It was very fast and after I completed going through the entire original mass of screws for that one size, now reduced in size, I started over and selected the next size of screw to sort out.
Nancy?
I have no idea. I blanked it all out.)