Fictional tools

[dreadnut]

At work, we used to send the new guys looking for the wire stretcher. "Damn, this wire is too short..."

In boot camp, they used to send the new boots (me) looking for a "squeegee repair kit." Then of course, every shop I went to would send me to a different shop, it was a well-oiled routine.

Then someone in boot camp told me: "This thing is all plugged up. Go down to supply and get me some fallopian tubes." Haha, I didn't fall for that one.

 

[gjmalcyon]

We once sent one of my high school classmates to a series of local auto parts stores for a replacement gonkulator for his Ford Maverick. He was complaining it was running poorly (some surprise, eh?), so we convinced him he needed a new "gonk".

When he realized he was had, he was not amused. At all.

I have been known to send small children rooting around my tool box for a "left-handed framistat".

 

[Brad Little]

On NPR's the Moth, one story teller told of his first day as a batboy for the Yankees and his search for a bat stretcher: My First Day at the Yankees

 

[LeFinPepere]

I try to translate from the french "marteau à bomber le verre" :"The glass-curving hammer".

 

[markus]

One of my friends was sent to buy a new cable for her new WLAN/WiFi by her brother …

markus

 

[PreacherBob]

When I started 1982 at the shipyard in Newport News Virginia as an electronics tech on nuclear powered subs, first day on the pier we had to remove some equipment off the sub up through the hatch. The guys sent me to the tool room to check out a “sky hook”, and off I went…

 

[dreadnut]

Another nautical one: "Tell the Chief we need more cooling water to the handrails."

 

[dreadnut]

We used to send the new guys to the cabinet to get a Styrofoam cup full of acetone. Of course, acetone eats styrofoam, so by the time the cup was half full, the acetone was all over their shoes. This is called "fun."

 

[fronobulax]

Over the years approaching curmudgeon status, I have found there are certain types of jokes I no longer find funny or amusing. Many of them are "practical jokes" that depend on someone else's ignorance or misunderstanding. So I have ignored or suppressed modern or recent experiences in this area.

But I do recall being at summer camp with the Boy Scouts and trying to fetch a sky hook. Not a tool, but the campsite was also threatened with snipes that we had to hunt for. Perhaps my favorite was a left handed monkey wrench. When spoken it is not clear whether it was a request for a left-handed version of a specific tool, a monkey wrench, or a tool to adjust a left-handed monkey. It was sometimes possible to convince someone that monkeys were native to Central New York and that a monkey's handedness could be determined by careful observation.

 

[Nuuska]

In the same category - strory from my hometown at sixties.

There was this Volvo Amazon for sale in otherwise immaculate condition w only very little kilometers on it. Only problem was, that the owner had died in it anl laid there the entire summer before he was found. And nobody was able to remove the smell. We pondered about it with boys and were sure it could be done. So off we went to this car dealer. He said he hasn't got it anymore but he sold it to this other dealer across the town.

We ended running round the town on several dealers before we realized that Volvo did not exist but in stories.

 

[geoguy]

Gratuitous left-handed monkey wrench reference @ 0:58:

 

[GGJaguar]

About 35 years ago, I was working on an environmental risk assessment for a hazardous waste site. We had to do some sampling of crabs in a nearby waterway to see if they were bioaccumulating heavy metals from the site (and then, of course, people would eat them). We built our own crab traps, but when we wrote the report we didn't want to say "homemade crab traps" so we called them "Wrenzeskilian crab traps" that were held in place by "extruded Strono poles". Nobody questioned it, not even the client.

 

[GGJaguar]

But I do recall being at summer camp with the Boy Scouts and trying to fetch a sky hook.

I was sent to look for a left-handed smoke shifter.

 

[RBSinTo]

A can of compression.
Having the boshonks re-reamed in one's engine.
And my personally coined word: "Feshnorton" which is used in our family as a general descriptor for any whatchamacallit, be it animal vegetable or mineral.
RBSinTo

 

[walrus]

We used to send the new guys to the cabinet to get a Styrofoam cup full of acetone. Of course, acetone eats styrofoam, so by the time the cup was half full, the acetone was all over their shoes. This is called "fun."

The "office worker" variation of this used to be to put one drop of "White-Out" in a cup of coffee - Styrofoam cup - and then just wait. Within several minutes the coffee would very slowly start to seep though...

Another classic was to take the holes from a hole punch, and put them in someone's umbrella, then just wait for a rainy day...

walrus

 

[dreadnut]

And it would rain down little paper dots, now that's funny!

 

[MacGuild]

Sending a new employee to get a bucket of steam, where they'll get redirected from department to department, is an easy and fun way for them to meet all the other employees and learn the layout of the workplace. Your first day? Go find the left-handed zither bows, talk to Joe downstairs first. By the end of the day, every employee knows who the new hire is.

Chuck Palahniuk collects "first day initiation" stories. I won't embed this video clip here because, well, Chuck is a bit much for some people (you have been warned), so here is the YouTube link. You'll never look at a veterinarian the same.

 

[dreadnut]

I heard someone, Thomas Edison maybe, used to ask prospective new engineers: "How much water will this container hold?" They'd whip out their slide rules, etc. and calculate an answer. Those who got the job simply filled up the container with a cup, and said "2 cups."

 

[mushroom]

Someone asked me to get a box of sparks from the depo once as they said their grinder wasn’t working properly.

Yeah - nice try dude.

 

[7GuildsandanSG]

I work in an ICU and we send new people to bring equipment to room 13. They roll the equipment past room 12 then stop at room 14 and go "what the heck!". Oh yeah, no room 13. Laughing ensues.