Friday morning a flyer made a quick field repair with a hot glue gun.

Unfortunately, he glooped a bit too much glue onto the fix.

A fellow flyer pulled out his car key and offered it as a putty knife to smooth the excess glue. It worked OK, but when the helpful guy tried to leave Baylands his car wouldn’t start.

Seems the coating of cooled glue gummed up his ignition switch.

Helpful Crowd. When I arrived, the car was surrounded by sympathetic (and perhaps slightly amused) helpers.

I tried to snap a picture, but he treated me like paparazzi so I retreated.

Various bright guys climbed into the driver’s seat and tried to coax the car to life.

No soap.

The car owner called a local locksmith but got no help.

Finally someone suggested a squirt of lubricant.

Who’s Got Oil? Graphite? 3-in-1? WD40? Couldn’t find any of them.

Lubricants were in short supply in flyers’ toolboxes, but someone found a can of silicon spray.

He climbed into the passenger seat, masked off the rest of the car and gave it a small blast.

A moment later the key clicked into place and the car started.

Clothespin, coat hanger, tongue depressor, toothpick, scrap plastic: it’s amazing how many tools you can make from everyday objects.

But you should keep your car key in your pocket.

Tags: Baylands, Tools.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 25th, 2008 at 6:10 pm and is filed under Baylands. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.