Little red toolbox always ready for job.

Byline: Laura Porter

COLUMN: DISPATCHES FROM THE HOME FRONT

You know," I said to my husband conversationally one Sunday morning. "I think I'm going to go to Home Depot to buy a new bolt for that crawl space under the back porch."

I was on the floor, doing stretching exercises.

He was still thinking about waking up.

"That way," I continued, "I can hammer it on and we won't have to worry about the door opening on its own anymore."

Even from across the room, I could see his face pale.

He threw back the covers and leapt to his feet, amazingly without throwing out his back.

"That's OK," he said. "You don't hammer a bolt. I'll take care of it."

The mere threat of my holding a bolt in my hand, much less with a hammer in the other, was enough to get him into the shower and out the door.

We have two approaches to household repairs.

I have a get-it-done fast style. I hammer first - even when a screwdriver might work better - and measure second. Actually, usually I don't measure at all: I eyeball.

My husband takes longer to get around to things, but when he does his work is meticulous.

He measures, uses levels, steps back to consider, takes several trips to the hardware store in search of the right part and ultimately finishes a project satisfied that he has done it well.

I readily admit that my efforts are slapdash at best.

But I just can't do good work without my toolbox.

Back in the dark ages, when I lived on my own in a series of apartments, I bought a red plastic toolbox and filled it with essentials.

In there I had a box of assorted nails, picture hangers and wire, a pair of pliers, a tack hammer that my father had given me from the tool drawer at home, and wrenches in several sizes.

I also had a red hand-held drill with a small plastic envelope of drill bits and an electric screwdriver.

That screwdriver may have been the single best household item I have ever purchased.

Black and orange, it came with a bit that could be reversed to make it a Phillips head or a flat screwdriver and two speeds, forward and reverse.

I kept it charged at all times, and I used it constantly.

I loved my toolbox.

A few years later, my husband and I got married and moved into our first apartment.

I think he had a hammer and a wrench, but he certainly didn't have a beautifully organized toolbox, I noted with some degree of pride.

For a couple of years, the contents of the little red toolbox came in very handy.

But when we bought a house, it suddenly had to share space with the three giant metal toolboxes that my husband's mechanically talented father had used during a lifetime of projects and repairs.

There were wrenches and pliers, saws and razor blades, a plethora of different sized screwdrivers, nails and screws of every denomination. There were hammers and levels and hasps. (I'm not even sure what a hasp is.)

There was an electric drill that came in its own box with a giant envelope of different drill bits.

Each toolbox was designated to hold different types of tools.

Now that we were living in our own house, with an actual workbench, my husband's standards for organization and household repairs rose.

There was no reason, he asserted, that the contents of the little red toolbox should be segregated. Instead, everything should be distributed among the three metal monstrosities, nails with nails, wrenches with wrenches etc.

And while he was at it, he voiced his contempt for my electric screwdriver, dismissing it as a toy.

I responded by buying a small padlock and labeling the little red toolbox with my name and a skull and crossbones.

And just to put it out of harm's way, I tucked it on the bottom shelf of the workbench, hidden behind a couple of cardboard boxes.

Every time I needed to fix something, I knew exactly where to find just the right tool.

One cold December day, I came down to the basement in search of the magic electric screwdriver and the little red toolbox was empty, its contents missing.

I was outraged.

"What do you do with my stuff?" I asked my husband, dangling the violated toolbox in front of him.

He shrugged. "I just put it with everything else," he said.

"How did you break into it?" I asked

"Are you kidding? I have tools that eat padlocks for breakfast," he said.

"What about my screwdriver? What did you do with that?"

"That toy? I think I tossed it in with the other screwdrivers."

Distracted by kids, work and daily life, I never got around to refilling the little red toolbox. It's still down in the basement.

But in a corner of the closet in my study, I have a few items squirreled away: the tack hammer, some nails, and the electric screwdriver. It's charged and ready to go.

Now that I think about it, I think it's time to put a padlock on the closet door.