Shopping for 'Necessities'
BAN BASIC, Sucrets, Stanley Tools, Twice as Fresh, Craftsman, and Raid—what does this unlikely partnership of product brands have in common? As with Hitachi, Coors, Anheuser-Busch, and RCM, might not Arid, Band-Aids, Mr. Clean, Kellogg's, Black & Decker, and Renuzit be appropriate sponsors for our contests and fun flys? You say I surely jest, but these are just a few examples of an endless list of products and brands which we in the modeling fraternity (for me, in RC) buy specifically to aid and abet our pursuit of happiness in the hobby/sport. How? Read on!
I went shopping with my wife yesterday in a local general-purpose store. This once was a K-Mart. We loaded the shopping cart with a bunch of goodies I needed in order to get started on my new Hobby Shack/Pilot F-16A kit, but all (yes, all) were under the guise of household necessities. Smile, buddies—there won't be any problem getting the wife to pay for all of these "necessities"!
First, we picked up a non-aerosol pump bottle of Ban Basic. The spray caps are the screw-on type and are easily removed. The bottle is perfect for filling with water, then using as an ultra-fine mist atomizer for warping that wing or fuselage balsa sheeting or to mist Japanese tissue or silkspan (if you're still using these instead of the heat-applied coverings). The only problem is finding a way to use all that deodorant by tomorrow when I want to do the wing skins. Of course, I could spray the Ban right on the skins and… nah— the guys at the field have called my planes names, but never "stinker" before!
I noticed my wife coughing, so in the pharmacy area I thoughtfully suggested that we buy a can of Sucrets throat lozenges. She thanked me for my concern and put the can in the cart. Now I had a handy can perfect for my new bag of T-pins which had arrived in the mail last week.
In the carpentry section, I picked up another Stanley carpenter's angle (a steel straightedge with a sliding 90° V-leg having a bubble level). My wife agreed that we needed this second one in addition to the one we already had so that we could work efficiently together on our 22-month-old son's backyard playhouse we were building. I've already removed the slide attachment on the old tool so that I can use the steel straightedge; it's perfect for cutting balsa or thin plywood with an X-Acto knife, single-edge razor blade, or Stanley utility knife (depending on the work to be done).
Over in the household area, my wife wanted a room deodorizer. I suggested Twice as Fresh for no apparent reason other than the scent appealed to me. That "light bulb" over my head lit up as I envisioned slicing a slot (as on a piggy bank) on the top of the canister just large enough for slipping worn-out razor blades into (and keeping my son's prying fingers out). Some epoxy or cyanoacrylate around the base would forever prevent reopening the canister. Hmmm — how can I get rid of these pads by tomorrow?
Somehow, somewhere during our move to Denver from Dover, DE six months ago, I had lost my large California Hotel craps dice. I needed something new with clean vertical sides for holding wing ribs perfectly upright during construction. Passing the automotive section, some shiny little buggers caught the corner of my eye—socket heads! Since we have a relatively new car with metric nuts and bolts, I convinced my wife that we needed a bunch of new sockets in metric sizes so that I could maintain the car. I chose the larger sizes, because the added height and weight are perfect for holding those ribs in place. (Unfortunately, sockets are somewhat more expensive than dice unless you're unlucky at the craps tables in Lost Wages, Nevada.)
Walking to the cashiers, we noticed some Raid House & Garden bug killer on sale. That reminded me of a hint I had seen previously in RCM in which some cyanoacrylate bottles fit nicely into the caps of some aerosol cans, preventing accidental spillage. What the heck—we needed some Raid anyhow, so I took two cans: one cap for the workshop and one for the field box.
My son grabs things at the checkout line all the time. I know I don't have to explain this phenomenon to you parents. "Don't touch, put that back!" is the way it goes. This time he grabbed a nifty little pencil sharpener with a rotating top which prevents all the shavings from falling out. Patting my son's head, we took a couple of the sharpeners—one for his playhouse in the backyard (that playhouse sure has been a benefit to my hobby) and one for his bedroom. One of those will soon disappear into the garage where my workbench is located, and then I won't have to run to the house every time all my pencils are dull.
We finally made it to the cashier, and the bill rang up to $20.50 (shouldn't have bought too many sockets!). All of the items were necessities, meaning that the wife's budget pays for the whole bill. I grinned to myself—hardly able to wait to get started on the F-16A.
"Honey," my wife said as she looked into her wallet, "I bought groceries today and used all my cash. May I borrow $20 from you to pay for this?" With my grin disappearing, I forked over the $20 bill, knowing how we all borrow from our spouses and never repay.
As we left the store I noticed my wife now had a wide grin on her face. I asked, "What's so funny, dear?" She replied, "Sometimes I don't realize we need so many things. I'm glad you came along tonight."
Next time, I think I'll stay home and watch a ball game on the boob tube.
- Jonathan N. Young
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
