When Your Box Falls Apart

Our home on wheels has two doors. The front door has storage compartments. You can get in that way but it would be quite a climb. There is no inside handle on the front door. The entrance door is about midway back. It may help to know this. 

We came back to the BoggsMobile after lunch a couple of weeks ago and the door wouldn't open. The bolt lock was unlocked and the latch pulled but the door would not open. I lifted Kelly Jo up into the front door and she tried the latch from inside and it wouldn't open. Something was broke inside the door and you can't take it apart from inside the bus.

If the latch had broken while we were all inside we would have been stuck! Kelly Jo would have been going out the window. I was able to take the latch apart from the outside and get the door open. I did not have time to take the door completely apart and I knew I could not buy that latch at WalMart or Lowe's anyway. I decided it was better to wait until I went to Nashville.

We arrived at Prevost in Nashville this afternoon and I took off the inside of the door. The latch was busted and Prevost had one in stock so I closed my eyes and bought it. I am so mechanically UNinclined it is not funny but I had it tore apart, so my options were few. I waded in to see if it could be done.

While I was working I needed a tool that I thought was inside the bus. I was looking for the tool and picked up a cardboard box we keep in a drawer that has a little bit of everything. The box fell apart in my hands and all the contents went to the floor. Wire nuts, staples, tape, screws, washers, screwdrivers, pliers, tape measure, hammer, rope, flashlights wire ties and on and on and on. 

You get the idea? All of it went to the floor. All over the floor! It was a mess! I found what I needed and began to install the new latch. 

To complete the job I had to put on a very small nut on a hard to reach place and I had no tool to tighten it. I could not get it on. Just as I was about to give up, I remembered something I saw in the junk I had dropped all over the floor.

It was a very small crescent wrench a good brother gave me years ago as part of an object lesson. I forgot the object lesson long ago and had no idea where the wrench was until the box fell apart in my hands and the contents spilled all over the floor.

You can see how small it is when compared to a small set of finger nail clippers.

The small little wrench was the perfect tool for the task at hand. I could not have finished the job the little wrench. And that means I could not have finished the job without the box falling apart and everything scattering all over the floor. 

So, the next time you feel like crying or quitting when things fall apart, stop. Look closely at the pieces scattered about. You may find that the very thing you need is waiting there for you among the scrambled contents of that broken box!

Broken boxes, jumbled contents and inconvenient messes may be the very thing you need to solve your pressing problem.

By the way, I did get the door fixed!

Davy