Jean wrote:That is only worth 2 beers.
Do not compromise your morals.
Hell, you might even start looking at an oilhead.
"Oh, the humanity!!!!"
Jean, I have been looking for my morals for some time now, going back through the um, ... memory thingie, trying to remember when I last saw them. You know how it is when you've lost something ....
Just say for instance, (just as an example mind), that you were looking for the 3 long bolts that you need to remove and replace the clutch. You know exactly where they are, hanging in their little ziplock back on the nail in the shed where they have been for 5 years. You go to get them and WTF?, they are not there. You've been trying to keep things organised, trying to be a bit anal about the collection of BMW bits and special tools and so on, even though this is slightly out of character. Now, (this is still a hypothetical) you know you have loaned them out to mates a couple of times but they have always come back, or have they? Ah that's it, you think. Last person you loaned them to was so-and-so, but he is 300kms away taking his boys to a football game. Damn, you think. (Actually you might have said some stronger words than that). So you remove your clutch by carefully removing the 6 little bolts, even though you have just read in the book that there will be risk of injury and damage. At the final turn of one of the bolts there is a loud sproinging sound and there are bits flying everywhere. No injury, no damage, but (in this example) where are all the bolts? Now, say all this happens on your front porch, next to a garden that for some reason hasn't been maintained in recent years. It is full of weeds and looks pretty ugly and that last bolt is probably in there, somewhere. Being a resourceful blighter, you get a nice strong magnet and search that garden, get scratched by the wild rose bushes that have never flowered and have no luck at all.
I know this is a long winded and unlikely hypothetical, but something like this
could happen to
somebody. Anyway, the time comes to put your shiny new clutch back on. You have ascertained that the bloke you might have loaned them to has definitely returned those 3 long bolts so you start doing a proper search, through your entire house, your shed, the boxes of things that you have packed away up on the top shelf in the back of the shed, under the seat of the car. You even grill the cat (not too hard, he's a sensitive soul). You begin to regret the astonishing amount of alcohol and possibly other substances you have perhaps unwisely consumed in your long life, but get over that in no time. Then, just as you about to give up, realising that you will just have to wait until Monday so you can borrow a car and drive 30kms to the bolt shop to get some more bolts and, Holy Sheepshit, there they are, hanging on a different nail about a metre away from their original location. You grin wildly but your joy is short-lived because there is still the matter of that goshdarn (you might have used a slightly stronger word here) missing bolt. On the way from the shed to the porch you suddenly think, "Ah, what if " .... and you move the trailer and there it is - that lovely bolt. It is truly gorgeous - so compact and sturdy looking. It has done its job so well for 36 years. It was 5 metres from the bike. You hold it in one hand, and the little bag with the 3 long bolts in the other hand. You look at the sky for a moment but no, you remind yourself, don't even think about that.
I could have used a different and much shorter hypothetical example here, and I have no idea why I chose this extremely unlikely one, but to get back to the original question ... er ... yep, my
morals. Phew. I know I use them a lot, or at least try to. Sometimes it is difficult. I know I put them somewhere ......