By Jim Hagarty
2014
I don’t believe in magic. Everything can be explained. With one exception.
My Magical Jar.
I wish it contained loonies and toonies or hundred dollar bills, but it doesn’t. It contains screwnails. It’s a one-litre peanut butter jar I cleaned out about 30 years ago and into which I tossed the few screws I had at the time. Since then, that jar has never run out of screws nor has it overflowed but it has almost always had just the screws I need for any project.
On Sunday, for example, I needed six weather-treated deck screws, exactly one-and-one-quarter inches long. I had no idea whether or not I had any deck screws in the jar, let alone that length. But I dumped all the screws out and went fishing. A few minutes later, in my hand, were the six screws I needed, exactly the right length. The funny thing is, there were no other screws like that in the jar.
This happens all the time. I go to that jar several times a week and remove some of its contents. But no matter how many screws I take out, the level of them in the jar, which is always about half full, never seems to change. A loaves and fishes kind of thing.
I might need two, one-inch brass woodscrews. There they are. Four, two-inch metal screws. Ditto.
I never consciously go to the store to buy screws to top up the jar. But I do buy new screws on occasion for a project and I guess the leftovers go into the jar. Also, I accumulate screws from various items we buy for the house and which seem to be unneeded. However the screwnails get into that jar, the jar is always forthcoming. Like a golden goose or a pot of gold. Maybe even a genie and a lamp. But that would be just my luck to waste one of my three wishes on six deck screws.
I have many of my Dad’s handtools and shovels, rakes etc., which I will pass on to my son and daughter someday. I don’t know who will get the screwnail jar.
Maybe they’ll have to flip a coin from my coin jar which, alas, is always running on empty.
