My Worst Nightmare: A Hodgepodge of Hardware

(Actually, my worst nightmare is burning alive in a fiery crash)

Currently on Etsy there’s an anxiety-inducing listing for 5-pounds of pre-owned nuts and bolts available for purchase for almost $20. And the lucky buyer gets to pay an ADDITIONAL $19.74 for shipping!

I can’t even.

Sadly, a lot of folks have some version of this bolt salad in their garage right now. Baby-food jars, rusty coffee cans and old cigar boxes are just jangling with rand-o hex bolts, lock nuts, wood screws, flat washers, and other fasteners. Imagine running out to the garage to find FOUR of one particular piece of hardware necessary to complete a project.

Right now, the best way to organize hardware is to do it by hand, sorting each piece into individual bins. For me, just the thought of this tedious task induces a different type of anxiety.

As far as I can tell, there’s no automated or mechanical way to sort fasteners. However, there’s a solution to this problem if only somebody would invent it.

Of course, I mentioned my genius idea the other night when Chuck and I were out for supper with two other couples. And they just laughed at it like I was kidding or something! Seriously, next time I’ll have to choke on a bone to get more attention.

It comforts me to know that loyal subscribers to Mom & Pop Hardware know and appreciate brilliance when they read it. Thank you in advance for creating a safe space for me. So here is my idea, one that I am actually, truly, sincerely, 100% serious about.

You know how you can go into a grocery store and dump a bucket of coins into a machine that will sort through them and pay you what they’re worth (minus a nominal fee)?

What if you could take a bucket of random fasteners into a hardware store and dump it into a machine that would sort each piece by type and size?

I think people would pay for that service just to restore some order to their garage.

Alternatively, for people who just want to clean out their garage, the hardware store’s sorting machine would be the go-between to the smelter. The consumer would dump the bucket of fasteners into the machine, which would spit out a receipt that would be redeemed for the value of the metal.

Or alternatively, the consumer could donate their sorted fasteners to charity building projects, like Habitat for Humanity.

Yes, it would be hard to invent a machine that could recognize such a wide array of fastener types and sizes. Some may argue that the consumer would have to presort the hardware first—separating the bolts from the screws, for example. But even that would be a huge barrier to success. Complicated sorting machines already exist. One in particular touts its versatility in this graphic:

And with advances in AI, distinguishing fasteners’ thread types and head types will get faster with machine learning. Some basement engineers have already made experimental bolt-sorting machines on their 3-D printers.

A machine like this would benefit homeowners, manufacturers, construction workers, and other job sites, no doubt. But it could also bring foot traffic into your independent hardware store. Just like people stop in to get a key cut or have paint mixed, they could come in to have their hardware sorted. And while they’re there, they’ll decide to make some other purchases. Everyone wins!

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BONUS CONTENT
Clearly, editors at the New York Times have been reading the Mom & Pop Hardware Substack. I mean, why else would they have included this category in their recent Connections puzzle?

While I applaud their efforts to stay relevant in the hip world of hardware, I think including mere words like “bolts” and “nuts” falls short, don’t you?

But, hey, I’m not going to come down too hard on them for some silly little puzzle, one in which I have a 97% winning percentage over 632 completed games, of which 396 were perfect puzzles, of which 59 were purple first.