As you many know, I have always been a fan of fixing something that is broken if possible rather than just tossing it and buying something new.  There are so many reasons to do this: saving money (by at least delaying a purchase), throwing away less trash and just feeling good at the accomplishment.  Recently my pool cleaner was not working and rather than spend $400 on a new one, I was able to buy all the replacement parts and essentially rebuild the entire thing other than the case itself for $80, and some of you may have read about my restoration of a friends 1960′s floor lamp.  Awesome, right?

Sometimes repairs go wrong.

No big deal or big cost, but I was using my 25-foot tape measure recently to measure something damn near 25 feet long.  I should say that a 25-foot tape measure is really a 20-foot tape measure, since taking those last five feet out often results in it not going back in again.  As was this case.  No problem; I’ll fix it!

I took it apart, knowing it would need to rewind the spring in it.  I started winding it back up, checking to see if it had enough winding to pull the tape all the way in when I heard a loud SNAP, which was the spring breaking near the end.  Well crap, looks like I’m not fixing this.

What I was unprepared for was what was left of the wound spring essentially EXPLODING out of the case when I went to set it on my desk. I’m glad I was clear because the edges of the spring are razor sharp!

Moral of the story: Much like in life in general; we can’t fix everything.