Twisty Ties
I have amassed, over the years, a formidable collection of all sorts of wires. Speaker wires, telephone wires, hard drive cables, power cables, monitor cables, extension cords, &etc. These resided - until this morning - in a disorganized fashion in a bucket below my computer desk (where I now sit). This morning, being in a rather fastidious mood, I decided to disentangle the various wires and align them in a quasi-neat fashion in the bucket.
I had suspected for some time (months, in fact) that such a Day of Reckoning would come for the messy bucket, and so I had stored away a number of twisty ties (the type used for sealing bags of garbage or bread or frozen bagels) for the occaision. I put these twisty ties away in a special place so I could find them easily when I needed them for keeping the unruly wires coiled.
I couldn't find them.
(This happens with some frequency, and not just to me, I am informed. I take things and put them in an especially logical place so they will be there when I need them, but then I go off and forget exactly where there is. )
I searched several likely places (top drawer of filing cabinet; in an unlabeled file folder; in my desk; in a baggie with the wires) for my carefully scavenged twisty ties, but they did not avail me. Eventually I came to the conclusion that they were Gone, and decided to seek another solution. Having already gotten it in my mind that I was going to straighten out the wire bucket today, I had no choice but to seek other twisty ties. Aside from taking them from unopened packages of bread, I had only one choice - take from the package of garbage bags below the sink. I understood that in the long run this would mean a bunch of garbage bags going either wasted or simply unsealed, but I was deperate and willing to face the consequences in a few months when the unstolen ties ran out.
Now, understand, there are two types of twisty ties. The proles may not notice the difference, but there are those of us in the world with discriminating taste who can't help but pay attention to such things. A good twisty tie is a solid piece of plastic, usually grey or black, about an eighth of an inch thick. A crappy twisty tie is an exile piece of wire surrounded by some cheap green paper to make it look like a respectable twisty tie. (Upon vigorous twisting, the paper will fall off of a crappy twisty tie, and one will be left with only a bare wire.) My stolen garbage bag ties, as the thoughtful reader will have deduced from the preceding description, were of the latter, inferior type. They were also thoughtfully marked - on the cheap paper part - "WARNING: TO AVOID SUFFOCATION, KEEP PLASTIC BAGS AWAY FROM CHILDREN." (It makes it sound like I'd be the one suffocating if a child got a hold of the garbage bag.)
So, having acquired the illicit twisty ties, and expressed dismay at their blatant lack of quality standards, I set about organizing my wire collection. At long last, it was done - each wire coiled and carefully bound about the middle with a wrinkly green paper twisty tie. I have set the well-organized wires away carefully in a logical place so I will be sure to have them findable when I next need them...
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Comments
Well, in that unlikely event, a crap ass papery twist-tie wouldn’t do much good anyhow =/
Posted by Aa at June 16, 2002 6:07 PM :: LinkPost a comment
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Hmm, interesting. I’m sorry you had to live with such low quality life, twisty ties ;/ eek! Hmm, well when your roof is on fire, and you need to protect some household items inside a garbage bag, and you have no ties to seal the bag from distaster, how are you going to feel then?
Posted by Steve at June 16, 2002 4:54 PM :: Link