How to use a Glue Gun... Don't!

You know we are surrounded by such ridiculous warnings on so many products that I truly believe our intelligence is being insulted.

Let’s face it, if anyone IS dumb enough to use a hairdryer whilst actually IN the bath or shower, then perhaps shock therapy might be a good thing for them?

And those allergic to peanuts who actually need to be reminded with the message ‘Warning, May Contain Peanuts’ when buying a packet of… well… peanuts, perhaps should leave the snack purchasing to their three year old toddler… or family pet?

But then there are other every day items which should, I believe, carry a LARGE PRINT warning, and they don’t.

Now before you start complaining that this is a subject I have written about before, I am NOT talking about the
‘DANGER – Approach with EXTREME Caution’ warning which I STILL believe should be emblazoned on a compulsory-to-wear T-Shirt of any WATGUS (Wife Attempting To Give Up Smoking).

Nor am I going to wax lyrically about my campaign for anyone between the age of 13 and 22 to be clearly labelled with
‘CAUTION – This Product Consumes Everything, Produces Nothing, Disagrees with 95% of all logic and May Cause Extreme Irritation to Sensitive Parents. Do Not Wash.’

No. I’m talking about something far more serious. A weapon which, I believe, has been invented by a team of the world’s top 10 scientists (whilst on a break from developing Amway products) in order to cause major mayhem and destruction in households of normal people. It could possibly be the final nail in the coffin of us poor, downtrodden men who are already battling to maintain the last vestige of ‘manliness’ in our own homes.

I’m talking about The Glue Gun.

You see whilst I don’t claim to know everything about DIY, I am one of those who cannot resist buying ‘The Gadgets’ whenever I have any spare money. Like when I find the envelope containing the money Mrs Ed has put aside for the electricity bill BEFORE the pub opens.

There’s something about buying, nay, OWNING, The Gadgets that makes me, and I’m sure other men, feel like the ‘hunter gatherers’ we originally were back in them good old ‘Cave days’. So I have a collection of Gadgets strategically placed in cupboards and drawers throughout my home and office.

This has brought me both an immense amount of satisfaction (I can now accurately shoot nails into our Avo tree from a distance of 15 metres) and disappointment.(Actually I suppose the disappointment is my own fault, If I had studied the picture a bit more carefully before ordering the ‘Carpenter’s Workmate with Multiple Vices’ online, I would have realized that it was the wooden bench and all its attachments that they were selling, not the good looking young lady in the slim-fitting overalls and toolbelt standing next to it.)

Of course our continuous quest is for the ‘fix-all’ gadget. The tool that will not only cut your household maintenance time down to a minimum, (thus allowing you more time to stand back, preferably with a well-deserved cold beer in hand, and peruse your work) but also allow you to finish it in such a way that your wife actually starts to think you are capable, instead of raising her eyebrows whenever anyone mentions you and DIY in the same sentence. (I tried raising my eyebrows like that once when someone mentioned Mrs Ed and cooking in the same sentence… it took weeks before the swelling went down).

I had thought that I had found this ultimate gadget in …. The Glue Gun. Indeed I had seen other, perhaps (I’ll admit) more experienced DIYers use it with such ease and… well… NEATNESS, that it wasn’t difficult for the salesman at the hardware store to convince me. “This fantastic little tool is the gadget to beat all gadgets. The gizmo that will allow you to arise like a preheated phoenix from the ashes of your DIY despair!” he said... or something like that...

But now I can understand why they call it a gun. It is, after all, a lethal weapon. A mass murder weapon in fact. Ask me – it killed off my self-esteem, my integrity, quite a number of my already waning hair follicles, half an eyebrow, numerous eye-lashes and all the fingerprints on my right hand. In one afternoon.

And all I was trying to do was stick up a phone extension line and a computer cable. I can’t even blame Mrs Ed, because she wasn’t in her usual position – which is standing behind me, looking over my shoulder and making inane statements such as ‘Make sure it’s straight’ and ‘Dad never did it that way,’ and ‘Are you sure you should be using the electric bread knife for that?’. No – this was an Office Job. My office ceiling looks like a Mumbai Slum there are so many wires criss-crossing the air, so I thought I would simply make them all look a bit neater by gluing them onto the edge of the cornice where the ceiling meets the wall.

So I purchased The Glue Gun. I still maintain that if it bore a large-type legend ‘Warning – this product could result in semi-permanent nostril closure’ I would have thought twice.

Now I hate to get technical but I feel I have to explain the intricate details of how The Glue Gun works so that you might further understand my pain and anguish. When plugged in the Gun heats up the Glue Stick (loaded in the back) and squeezes melted (and exceptionally adhesive) glue out the front. Got it?

This sounds very simple, and indeed it was during the test run:- I managed to stick a small piece of telephone wire to my desk quite convincingly, and with absolutely no pain involved.

But you see my telephone wire and computer cable needed to be stuck in the top corners of my office, not my desk. As any idiot would know, this meant using a ladder. HA! Not on my watch. Ladders are for wimps. For a real, hardened DIYer like me it meant standing precariously with one foot on the back of my office sleeping couch and the other on the windowsill for balance… whilst looking up, holding the cables in place with my left hand, operating the glue gun with the right, and steadying myself with the other hand….. uh?

It was when I grabbed the cables with my right hand (yes, the one holding the glue gun) and tried to put them in my mouth to free up my left hand, so I could sort my balance out…. that my face had its first brush with the glue gun...

It was just ‘light contact’ with my temple, just above my right eye, but somehow it caused me to scream like a girl and fall back onto the couch (fortunately), with a hefty dollop of hot glue setting hard at a dangerously rapid rate upon my eyebrow (unfortunately).

I screamed even more as I instinctively grabbed at the gluey mass and ripped it off my face... along with a considerable amount of brow material.

I was more careful on my second attempt. Cunningly pressing the wires against the wall with my forehead, I started squeezing some glue into the corner with the gun so I could then thrust the wires into place before it dried. Clever eh?

The Unfortunate Downfall of this method was that, though I was more stable, with my head against the wall I could only see the glue gun out the corner of my eye… so the fact that the hot glue was happily bubbling out and running down the handle, instead of obediently making its way onto the cornice didn’t register…. until I felt the searing pain.

I tried to drop the gun but I couldn’t. No matter how much I shook my arm about and screamed blue murder at it, it stuck.

My other hand was still holding me steady so I instinctively brought the gun/hand/glue mass up to head height and pinned the gun against the wall with my forehead whilst ripping my hand away. The rush of relief as I finally pulled my hand free of the gun was shortlived, indeed it ended just as the searing pain started again… this time along my hairline…. I think it was then that I blacked out. Or perhaps my eyelids stuck together, I’m not sure....

I did eventually get to read The Glue Gun instructions some time later... with my good eye.... but the only warning I could find was “Caution:- Small parts. May present choking hazard!”
For once they are quite right. In fact as soon as my head has healed I’m going to go round and show that hardware shop assistant just how much of a choking hazard a glue gun can be.....