Our draperies came back from the cleaners the other day without pin-hooks. Being the cool-headed and forgiving Gentleman that I am 
I smiled and said to myself “oh well” and ran down to fetch some at Wal-Mart. (You know where this is going, don’t you) In the hours that followed, I lost a dangerous amount of blood and invented several new cuss-words.
Keep in mind……I am no chump when it comes to hanging drapery. I have inserted thousands of pin-hooks in my lifetime and, though no person in possession of all of his marbles enjoys it, I don’t really mind it much.
Excited to strike one more thing from my honey-do-list, I commenced pin-hook insertion. Five minutes later, I was still working on the first hook, and was running through possible explanations for this unwelcome challenge in my head….”Maybe I got a bad batch”…..”Perhaps this is some new fan-dangled high-strength buckram technology”….and…..”Am I getting weaker with age?”….. After twenty excruciating hooks I start looking around for hidden cameras and trying to imagine what I could have done to deserve such a cruel prank. I was thinking “dull pin-hooks? what the hell is this world coming to?”…and…..”It has been a while since I have done this, but I don’t remember all the bleeding!”
After verifying with a dictionary that the word “pin” does in fact strongly imply sharpness, I moved on to the next drapery panel. I managed about ten more hooks when my fingers started screaming “uncle” and refused to go on, so I headed out to the garage with a big dark Eeyore cloud over my head to find some pliers.
The pliers helped, but those damned “hell hooks” (I needed to name them so I could curse them directly and with conviction) were still a nightmare to insert. I finally had to go to the hardware store to buy an awl to start a hole, which worked pretty well, but did not prevent me from quietly repeating “what the…?” in a state of defeated disbelief for the remainder of the project.
Like the mother whos’ tragic experience causes her to start a foundation to help prevent further suffering, I came in to the office this morning determined to raise awareness and was filled with the standard ”if I can save just one person from…blah…blah…, then all the hard work on this ridiculously long blog post will all be worth it…yadda…yadda…yadda.”
I started by hitting Wal-Mart and the Home Depot which are the two main “uh-oh, I am at a job site without enough pin-hooks but don’t want to drive all the way back to the workroom” hot-spots, and bought pin-hooks. When I got back to the office, I borrowed a Rowley Company pin-hook from Anita, and was ready to find an answer to the burning question, which, as we touched on earlier, is ”what the…”?!?!
I took a photo of the three pin-hook specimens together, and I am the first to admit that my eysight ain’t what it used to be, but they all look about the same……
But look what we discovered under the intense scrutiny of our super-duper macro lens!!! The bloody fingers…..the new cuss words…..it..it..it all made sense now! The Wal-Mart “pin”-hook (left) was just chopped at a slant and called good, the Home Depot version (middle) was pretty but duller than Al Gore, and the Rowley pin-hook (right) was gloriously sharp and efficient looking. So my advice to you window coverings professional out there is to double and triple check your pin-hook supply before heading out to an installation. I would not wish a Wal-mart “hell-hook” debacle on my worst enemy!
11 Comments
Jay, I love your blog. This is priceless! I have been there and done that! I learned a long time ago to purchase the professional hooks by the 1000 and keep them in the van. I am no fan of Wal-Mart either! Your photo was just another example of “quality” – you get what you pay for!
Seriously hysterical!!! That was like a “putting up the lights” type of story!!!
Jay,
We are all laughing and enjoyed your post. Thanks from the Rowley team!
Wow, Jay, and I have enough problems repinning with the good hooks! Can’t imagine having to use the Walmart ones. I feel your pain!
Love it Jay. I must say, Jay must have really been bleeding because I never hear him cuss!
Window coverings are a small part of my business, and this explains a lot. Fortunately, I have never used the hell hooks, but a what a difference between Home Depot’s hooks and Rowley’s hooks! Great education for myself, and I’m sorry, Jay, for laughing at your expense–Great blog!
omg! that is so funny! but so sad!
It is hard to believe, those Walmart pins are that BAD.
I wonder where Rowley’s pins are manufactured?
I don’t know where they are made, but they are clearly engineered by NASA.
We don’t know where the Rowley pins are manufactured. On the other hand, it looks like the Walmart pins are made in a prison. It looks like a shank that some criminal forged while in the clink. I’ve seen things like that on some TV show before, I remember it was on “Cops”
Oh, my Jay, what a story. I can tell you about a time I had to get some drapery pins in a job that was running behind and I went through the same thing. This was long ago, so I could not tell you where my pins came from. What a great way to tell a story and I bet everyone that reads this will not forget about the differences in drapery pins.
Jay, your post is hilarious! I highly recommend you add to your collection of neato-bandito new tools and get a pin setter too. After blisters formed on my “pushing” finger one super busy holiday rush, I got one and found nirvana. You will wonder how you ever lived without one.