New Olympic event: The Black and Decker Workmate challenge. Consists of several stages:
1) Carrying it in from the garage without damaging yourself or your surroundings
The competitors start off in a garage full of so much crap that the Workmate needs to be brought indoors for work to take place. Plus it’s a bit nippy out and the garage is a bit lonely. Athletes have to carry the Workmate a minimum of ten meters without the various manly bits of sharp metal, levers and prongs that are sticking out of the Workmate making contact with their shins, or scraping holes in the wallpaper.
2) The tricky “straightening the legs” manoeuvre
Usually achieved while wearing pink carpet slippers, the skill here is kicking the legs into position, lifting each corner in such a way that all the other previously straightened legs don’t collapse again.
3) Pulling the top bit into place without removing skin from fingers or wrenching muscles
Involves finding the Secret Catch Areas to press on the frame of the Workmate which allow the top to be moved into position. Athletes must be supple and able to contort their bodies into such a position that the knee keeps the rest of the Workmate on the floor while simultaneously the Secret Catch Areas are pressed and the top lifted. Tipping the Workmate onto its side to identify location of Secret Catch Areas will incur a penalty, requiring the contestant to go back and complete stage 2 again.
In case of dispute, winners are decided according to least amount of blood lost during competition.
…
I did a ‘furniture mod’, as it’s known on the internet! Involving a Black and Decker Workmate. I got a really cheap pine shelving unit to go in a weird corner cupboard that I have, which had shelves that didn’t quite fit properly and thus were useless. The unit was too deep and too wide, so I sawed loads of bits off it. It went together ok in the end, I had to go at it with a hammer for a while. It’s great! I’m very proud. I’d post a photo but it doesn’t look like much, and it currently has all my crap on it, and I wouldn’t want you psychoanalysing me based on the stuff I keep in my strangely shaped corner cupboard.
[Reposted to include awesome illustration by Nick Cooper!]
Tags: black and decker workmate, diy, furniture mod, lame observational humour
