(Please bear with me as I tell the story that led to the replacement of the garage door torsion springs.)
On a Saturday, I was sitting in the living room drinking my morning coffee and watching reruns of This Old House. Efiwym, my wife, walked to the front window, and suddenly stated, “Our flag is gone!” A few seconds later, she replied, “No, I see it, it is on the ground again.”
I replaced our old flag and pole this spring. The old flag was torn, and the wooden pole was warped. The new metal flagpole was made of three pieces. One section was pulling apart during a heavy wind. I originally put duct tape around the joint because duct tape fixes everything. The duct tape lasted about two weeks.
I usually would just put the flag back on the pole and fix it later. Not today! I went downstairs and looked in my unorganized box of screws and bolts. I found a bolt, a nut, two washers and a wing nut and put them in my pocket. I then went into the garage to get my drill. The drill is in my car with my toolbox. I had to open the garage door to open the hatch and retrieve my drill and drill bit.
I lined up the appropriate drill bit to the bolt to check the size and headed to the flag. I placed the flag back on the pole, removed the duct tape and drilled a hole through the joint of the pole sections. I tried to put the bolt into the hole, but it was too small. I got a second chance with a larger drill bit. I slid the bolt with a washer into the hole. The bolt was too short, so I removed the washer. Instead of using the hex nut I used the wing nut. You know just in case I needed to take the pole apart quickly?? My only fear was I probably weakened the flagpole where the bolt was. Nonetheless, I was happy with my successful resolution to the falling flag problem.
I went back inside and resumed my normal Saturday ritual of watching TV and drinking my morning coffee. My coffee was now cold, and I was watching The Food Network’s, The Kitchen. Efiwym, was working on her normal Saturday routine, the wash. She was upstairs putting clothes away when I heard this loud bang. It sounded like she slammed the closet door really, really hard. I would ask her when she got downstairs what happened.
As she stepped off the landing of the stairs, she asked if the washer made that noise. I told her, I did not think so, but maybe that is where the sound came from. Hmm. That was the end of that.
Later we were ready to go grocery shopping, and I went outside first to put an envelope in the mailbox. I opened the door and pressed the garage door opener button. The garage door went up about 2 feet and stopped with the opener beeping. I tried again, with the same result. I walked over to the door to check for any obstructions. None that I could see, so I tried for a third time. No luck.
Maybe it was divine intervention, but I looked up above the garage door, and I saw it, a broken torsion spring.
