Pretty new drill bits

I forgot today was Presidents Day. I’d saved up a string of errands to do and a couple of them involved banks. I was lazy on Friday and Saturday and didn’t go to the bank. Today, I thought. Well, so much for that idea. But I did return a library book AND I made my stop at Home Depot for the most important part of the errand running.

A couple of days ago I was inspired to finally get out my drill and start installing the hardware for some new ‘window treatments’. It all went swimmingly well until I tried screwing in the screws. I’d used a drill bit that was slightly too small and there was no power on earth that was going to get those screws all the way into the drilled holes. As happens, over time, when one has had a teenager in the house, the one size larger drill bit that I needed was conspicuously absent from my bit set. Along with several others. Time for a new drill bit set.

And so now I am the happy owner of a new black oxide set, housed in its own snappy looking red case. And, once again, I am moved to remark that a woman cruising the tool aisles at Home Depot seems to elicit a fair amount of bemusement from the males of the species. One of the male employees came over and wondered if I needed help and I said no, not really. I was just looking for the right drill bit set. He politely inquired if I was shopping for my husband and if I knew what I needed. I politely told him that no I wasn’t shopping for my husband and yes, I did know what I needed. My drill, my drill bits. But I said it with a grin and he warmed right up to the whole situation and gave me a run through of the various advantages of what was available. Pretty much a case of you get what you pay for, as usual. He agreed that the set I favored was quite adequate for general household projects, including light metal drilling.

So, now I’m trying to work up the enthusiasm to extract the half screwed in screws that don’t wanna come back out. They so don’t wanna come back out that I’ll end up stripping the screw heads if I try to force them out with the drill’s screw driver bit. That means a lot of elbow grease with the regular old screw driver. Meh. You’d think that the printed directions for installation would specify the drill bit size, but noooo. They don’t even specify what the screw size is. So, it was a case of eyeballing the screws and making a good guess. I guessed wrong. Hate when that happens.