What pisses me off: Things that don’t work

Today I spent a half hour drilling holes in my daughter’s brick wall to install a retracting hose reel thingy. At 40 Centigrade, it was a tad hot, but I told her I’d do it today, so I thought I had better deliver.

They are a great invention by someone good at inventing stuff, and it keeps the hose reel high enough up the wall to stop her young puppy from chewing the hose couplings. Of course, it removes the excuses for having a hose lying all over the place presenting a trip hazard. These retracting hose thingys are the bee’s knees.

But – there’s always a but – despite an excellently designed plastic hose housing, wall mount, and a reasonably decent hose inside, the plastic fittings at the end of the hose are, to put it in Australian slang, shithouse. When I turned on the tap to give it a test run, the hose broke free from the coupling and the best water pressure available where I live, covered me and my spectacles in water.

Fortunately, being a hot day, it wasn’t all that bad, but it pisses me off that someone can’t produce a hose coupling that doesn’t come off. Oh yes, there are some hose brands you can buy that have such a fitting, which is permanent and they work well, but most retailers seem to sell plastic fittings that either leak or blow off under pressure.

What hose fittings need is a tube that slides inside a hose and a clamp that you can tighten around the hose onto the insert. Pretty simple really, but as scarce as hen’s teeth in the dozens of hardware shops I have visited in the last year or two.

If I were 20 years younger, I’d design one, have it made in China like everything else and make a killing. But at my age, I can’t be bothered, I’m just happy to whinge about it on Starts at Sixty, and I think anyone with enough time to read it will probably nod and say, “I know just what he’s talking about.”

Things that don’t work piss me off.

What pisses you off?  Let us know in the comments down below.

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