Sunday, October 26, 2003
When super glue fails …
In setting my alarm clock back an hour, the hour button broke off and fell inside the clock, leaving me with a now horribly out of time and basically useless alarm clock. Frankly, having the hour button break was rather surprising as I don't use that nearly as often as say, the minute button, or the actual alarm button. For the past decade at least (and I suspect I've had the clock longer than that) I've basically reset the alarm daily (or even several times per day—I'm not the type of person to set the clock once and leave it be) and I use the snooze button.
I've used the snooze button so often I not only know the intersnooze time (nine minutes) but that after three hours (or twenty applications of the snooze button) the alarm clock just gives up and stops sounding the alarm (and I'm not sure what exactly that says about me, or the alarm clock).
So yes, having the hour button break was a bit alarming (pardon the pun).
Opening the clock (one screw, very nice) and gaining access to the top of the clock (where the buttons are, one screw and some rather stiff plastic tabs, not quite so nice) I was able to see that the buttons are actually at the end of a thin plastic arm that provide the “spring” to the buttons. Found the super glue and was able to re-attach the button although it seemed quite iffy.
And it was. Once I got the clock back together, the button promply fell back inside the clock. So the super glue was not going to cut it. Looking around the Computer Room I found Spring's roll of duct tape.
Ahh, duct tape. Like the Force, it has a light side, a dark side and it binds the universe together, or in this case, to keep the hour button from falling inside the case. Cut off a small strip, apply it across the button (thus securing the tape to the button and the case itself) and now I have a functioning hour button again.
