Twelve or thirteen years ago, when we lived in Spokane, I reached my breaking point. I don’t recall specifics, but it resulted in me going through all the hardware in my workshop, new and used, and throwing in the trash every slotted screw I could find.
Come to find that in Uruguay slotted screws are ubiquitous. The other day, in order to clean the outsides of our wooden windows with homemade screens, I had to remove a couple of them. The frames and windows have slots in them, and a removable wooden spline is screwed to the top frame. Hmm, let me try that another way:
Squinting up against the outside light, it’s hard enough to find the old and dark screws’ locations, much less the orientation of the slot. For a couple of them I had to use a flashlight.
After everything was cleaned, I put all but one of them back, which I took to the ferretería, to buy the same with a Phillips head. And so, into the trash with the slotted screws!
Perhaps one day I’ll feel the same about Phillips head screws, and insist on Pozidriv or Supadriv or Robertson (square), or double square, or triple square, or hex socket, or double hex, or Torx. But I doubt it. The 81-year old Phillips is just fine for now.
