Plaster Casters

My computer is acting like a butt and every time I open Photoshop it freaks out so I’m not able to get to the photo I want at the moment.

And now I’ve wasted most of my posting time wrestling with the computer so another fast update. Maybe I should just stop announcing that and accept that it’s my posting style.

The cough is hanging on. I tried to exercise but every time I tried to do something I doubled over coughing so I finally gave up. I also bought another gallon of cough syrup. I didn’t understand what a big jug I was buying but I am well stocked if this thing lasts awhile. The box says “new improved taste” and I’m here to tell you that is NOT true. It tastes like burned cherry diet satan’s diaper.

One of the photos on my camera is of my broken office chair. One day I was sitting in my office chair and I leaned forward and one of the wheels shattered. This was in January and I thought, “Okay, I have eaten a lot of Christmas cookies but I can’t possibly have crossed some threshold that makes me heavy enough to break an office chair.”

I thought you just went to the office supply store and said, “I need a new wheel,” and they’d open a drawer and hand you one.

No, that’s not how it works. I had to do some homework. Turns out there are different kinds of wheels and there is no universal system to make it easy to figure out what kind you need.

Here are actual instructions from a website I found:

If you have a caliper, measure the Grip Ring Stem in the section below the ring toward the caster body using your caliper. If it measures .437 + or – you have a 7/16″ diameter. If it measures .375 + or – you have a 3/8″ diameter.

I didn’t have a caliper.

I used one method which involved a ruler and me squinting so hard I sprained my eyes. This gave me precisely one of the measurements on their chart. Then I used the second method to check. The second method involved a piece of tape. That gave me precisely a different measurement on their chart.

Another part involved a calculation using pi. I’m not afraid of pi but who ever thought you’d end up using that to order office supplies?

I finally decided I’d just guess and if I got the wrong wheel I’d order a different one. Oh, they only sell them in 5-packs.

I finally found a 5-pack that includes all the different stems so I ordered that one. We’ll see how I do. Maybe I can put up a sign in the elevator and make extra money selling the other wheels.