Casters on

I will admit that though I completely expected to have to drill holes in the wine barrels, the thought of installing casters is not one that particularly occurred to me in the initial planning stages of the whole patio garden deal.

But as I stood on the BART platform in San Francisco one night with my friends Melissa and Derrick, Melissa pointed out to me that it was going to be sheerly impossible to move the planters without some ability to roll them.

“OK,” I said. “That sounds like a good idea.”

Inside, my head said, That sounds like something else I’m going to have to figure out how to do with a power tool. Hence, that is a terrible idea.

But I did like the sound of being able to move the damn barrels without requiring several chiropractor visits, and I’d already proved able to use the drill, so on to the next step. I had decided to go three to a barrel in a cockeyed triangle formation, which meant 24 bolts to place.

Luckily, the magnetized bolt setter made this easy. Right? Right. Except for the part where I put the fifth bolt up to the bolt setter attachment on the drill and promptly managed to lodge it in there at such an angle that it would not come out. The magnet held it there, wedged and ornery, and by this time in the day, the hardware store was closed. There was no option to just ditch the attachment and go buy another.

I pulled out my trusty toolbox and decided to try pliers. No luck. A wrench? Useless. Prying with a screwdriver? Pointless.

This is the point at which I channeled my inner toddler and threw a temper tantrum. I banged the bolt on the patio, though I managed to control myself enough not to slam the whole drill to the concrete.

Apparently? This is how you dislodge a stuck bolt. It popped right out on impact, and I returned to attaching casters, one at a time, until both barrels were done.

And then? Just because I could? I rolled those wine barrels around the patio a couple times before putting them in their permanent place.

Sometimes it pays to be a combination of petulant and stubborn. Sometimes, it even pays in tomatoes.