(The glue really is powerful–Photo Missing, waiting for replacement.)

Several weeks ago, when the wind did its thing in Las Vegas, one of my plastic patio armchairs ended up in the backyard pool, cushion and all. I saw it resting in the deep end of the pool for several days. Anticipating my pool man about to make his weekly visit and being somewhat embarrassed that the chair had been in the pool for almost a week, I decided to take action. I got the long wand that is used to skim unwanted leaves from the pool and dipped it down to the chair and was able to hook a chair leg and bring the chair up to the pool’s edge. The chair is lightweight, but the cushion, filled with water, was heavy.

I struggled and struggled to pull the chair and cushion out of the water and in so doing broke a chair arm. Great. But finally, after untying the cushion from the chair, I was able to rescue the chair. The cushion stayed in the pool until the pool man arrived.

So now I have a chair with a broken arm. That was the case for several days until finally, I decided to exchange the broken plastic armchair from the pool with a similar plastic armchair in my big shower, a chair my late husband had placed there when he was post hip surgery. I lifted the shower armchair and attempt to take it out of the shower by the shower door and it wouldn’t fit, no matter what angle I used. I could toss the chair over the top of the shower but I’d need a second person to catch the chair or, if I tried this alone, I might crash all kinds of things on the adjoining counters.

Time for Plan B: Buy some Super Glue and hope to put the broken chair back together. I’m somewhat new to the use of Super Glue and was hoping that my brand new tube from Amazon would have the glue flowing smoothly. It did. First I glued two pieces of a broken earring together. Then I glued the chair arm to the chair and put some tape around the area to hold it into place while the glue hardened.

Then I discovered that I had not been particularly neat during this project. A small piece of paint (from the earring) was somehow glued on my left pointer finger and plenty of glue had landed on several other fingers as well. The glue on my hands was hardening very fast. Wow. What to do? I had already removed the Super Glue from its package so didn’t realize advice on removing Super Glue from skin was on the package. So I washed the hands in question — no relief. I then Googled and found out that nail polish remover was one solution. I had some remover and went to work. The top layer of finger glue come off, but not the underlayer. I still had very texture-y finger tips.

The morning of Plan B’s execution, I had scheduled a visit to B&C Camera on West Sahara (across town for me). The store was having a “turn in your old cameras for cash or store credit” event, and I had a camera to sell.

With imperfect fingers, I drove to the camera store and found a rather long line outside the store — all folks turning in camera equipment. I had driven a long way, so I went to the back of the line. And I stood. And stood. Las Vegas is hot these days, so standing in line with a mask in place is not fun. However it did give me time to secretly pick at my fingers and bit by little bit, I was able to remove the last remnants of Super Glue from my hands. I must have waited in line for an hour and the removal took the entire time, though wearing a mask in the heat made me feel at one point that I might keel over, but I survived.

Eventually I made it to the head of the line. I turned in my old camera for a modest store credit and actually replaced that old camera with a new one. More importantly, I could now squeeze the photo and video buttons with a finger that was smooth as silk.

That evening, I went out to dinner with friends. I told them this story because I didn’t have anything else to report. My dinner companions listened politely, but soon switched the subject to politics.

My chair is doing well, incidentally.

I now await my next thrilling adventure during the pandemic.