Cat Fishing
After mounting a bracket for hanging a television on my master bedroom wall, I needed to add a receptacle and cable jack in the wall behind the TV. So I got my right angle drill, went to the basement, drilled into the wall, cut the end off the fishtape and worked it up through the insulation to the top plate inside the wall. I then went back up to the bedroom and cut a hole in the drywall seven feet above the floor, reached in and pulled out the fishtape, made a new hook on it, tied a string to it, and went back down to the basement. I pulled out the fishtape and then cut the string. After running the Romex and the coax over some duct work and walls in the basement I was ready to attach them to the string. But suddenly the string was gone! So I unrolled the fishtape and repeated the process. But this time when I started to pull the fishtape back out of the wall, it only came out about five feet and then stopped. I pulled on it again and it moved about six inches but then went back up six inches. I had to find out what was going on, so I went back up to the bedroom and found my wife's cat sitting on top of my ladder with the string in its mouth. Every time I would pull the fishtape down, the cat would pull it back up. Now I know why I'm a dog person.
Ken Horak
Manchester, Md.
Fender Bender
I once received a home service call to an upscale older part of town with multistory brick houses. I pulled into the driveway of the customer's house to find that his garage door was open. So I grabbed my clipboard and headed to the inside entry door from the garage to the house. Instead of knocking, I pushed what I thought was the doorbell button. As it turned out, the button actually controlled the garage door opener. As the door started to lower, I realized that the old '70s boat of a car that was parked inside was sticking out of the garage a little too far. The door came down and hit the top of the rear bumper and stopped. I was a little shook up, but no real damage was done. I try to always use the front door now.
Bob Urz
Omaha, Neb.
Illustrations by Clint Metcalf
