Beats me what forum this belongs in. The thread Turnbuckle belt tensioner has brought up the subject of left and right handed crescent wrenches and screwdrivers. A common fool’s errand is to send a n00b out to get a left handed screwdriver. Back in the 1900s we talked of emptying computer bit buckets. One of my favorites is the sky hook, a device you can use to hang things in mid-air. Sky hooks are real, they have threads on the end opposite the hook and they will rise naturally until hitting some solid object like a wooden beam where the upward force will cause the threads to rotate until they are fully embedded and the hook can’t rise any further. I have things hanging from skyhooks all over my basement.
So what are your favorite fool’s errands and mythical or nonsensical devices?
Get a bucket of Steam.
Go ask for 25’ of Gig Line.
And this one from my brother, Get the sheetrock stretcher.
ETA: The gig line one is probably Navy only:
Gig line refers to “the alignment of the seam of the uniform shirt, belt buckle, and uniform trouser fly-seam”.
I once told a neighbor(who was known for not returning tools) that I only had a metric adjustable wrench.
ETA: I even showed him on the handle where it showed the metric range.
My first-ever job was at a grocery store. There were two traditional fool’s errands to send new employees on. First, you’d tell the new kid to go shake all the salad dressing on the shelves - “customers don’t like it when they can see it’s separated.” The other bit was to tell them to go find you the basement key. The managers and key-carriers were all in on the gag, so they’d check their key ring and say “I don’t have it, go try so-and-so.”
My first boy scout camp was a regional thing including several troops. For one breakfast, I was sent out to find a ‘left-handed smoke sifter’ and a ‘bacon stretcher’. To this day, I don’t know how this worked out so well, but one of the other troops was able to ‘lend’ me a bent wire hanger (the ‘bacon stretcher’) and a tin can open at both ends, but with a separate small grill (the ‘smoke sifter’). I brought these back and did not at the time recognize any of the dropped jaws there must have been. I went off to wash my hands (the smoke sifter was fairly dirty) and when I came back, was simply told I could return the items.
Sure, I love telling that story.
A bucket of relative bearing grease (a shipboard prank, apparently).
One of our electricians in Vietnam was a total dipshit on every level. Nobody liked this guy. Our electrical supervisor was a grizzled old 2nd Class PO. Tired of Hogan’s shit one day, he sent him out looking for a wire stretcher, which meant he had to go around to different Marine Corps supply houses to ask them for one. Kept him busy for a couple of days, and every time he came back without it, he’d get an ass-chewing.
The security guard at a place where I once worked said that when he enlisted in the Navy, he was sent on an errand to get the red-and-white-striped paint.
(I saw a B&W film on TCM last month, where a couple of guys were painting something (a ship?) Their paint cans said ‘CHECKED’. The start brushing the ‘checked’ paint on the black wall/hull, and they were painting checkerboards. As soon as I saw the paint can labels, I surmised that the film was printed in reverse. They pulled it off well.
First time I ever brought my car in for service I wanted to present as a serious and knowledgeable car owner and found myself nodding along when the mechanic said we’ll also change out the air in the tires. Wait wut?
When my sister was in college, she was on the staff of a commercially-operated apartment building, where she watched this story unfold. At some point one of the residents called the front desk to say that their furnace or water heater wasn’t working. The desk staff assumed the pilot light had gone out, so with no nefarious intent, they told one of their newest hires to “go get their pilot light,” which was apparently common language meaning “go and reignite the pilot light.”
Newbie had no idea what a pilot light was, or how one might interact with it. Undeterred by her ignorance, she marched up to the affected apartment unit, knocked on their door, and said “I’ve come to get your pilot light.” The residents somehow quickly caught on to her lack of understanding, and decided to string her along by helping her spend large amounts of time searching all over their unit looking for the pilot light to take back with her. No luck. She went back down to the front desk and told the rest of the staff about her lack of success. After a short phone call to the affected resident, they had a good laugh and told her that she’d been hoodwinked.
I had always heard people call this a "left-handed smoke shifter. I’ve never participated in a prank using it, but I assumed it would be something like a large piece of cardboard with a left hand traced on it.
