Aes Triplex - 3

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We now come to Box # 3 of Father's fond 'Triple Property':

3. Nails Box

I guess nails are as old as civilization and are used for a variety of contradictory purposes: a couple of weeks back there was this claim that two crucifixion nails of Jesus were discovered in a tomb dug up in Jerusalem.

Frankly, I always had an aversion to nails of all shapes and sizes. My idea of Heaven is one where there are no nails and queues (quite unrelated).

But Father rather subscribed to Nino's "Nail Philosophy":

"...For years I dreamed of having a bit of a house of my own and nails to drive into my own walls...dark, fat nails or shiny nails six inches long...driving nails into a wall is an incomparable adventure. The plaster is smooth and white, concealing the mysterious irregularities that lie below, and the game consists of finding a point where a nail can be driven in between one brick and another...the nails that a man drives into his own walls are the sort of enduring links that transform a house into a home...

...At last I got the four walls I had wanted for so long, and needless to say, I held a nail-driving celebration...after that, whenever my nerves were on edge and I felt as charged with electricity as a mustachioed storage battery, I knew that these four walls would act as lightning conductors and preserve me from overtension and destruction..."

Father's Nails Box was made of Boxwood (Buxus sempervirens).

It was a foot and half long, six inches broad and three inches deep (not that I measured it). Knowing Father's panache for nailing I guess he bought the planks, sawed them, nailed them into a box and celebrated a la Nino.

The thing held:

1. Hammer:

This had a handle of grumpy knotty wood tapering at one end into which the solid hammerhead was precariously inserted. For every three strokes, the head would get loose or even fly away and Father had a knack of replacing it gingerly and hitting the reversed handle on the ground like on the occiput of a vagrant schoolkid.

2. Nails:

These are of various sizes ranging from thin one-inch 'photo' nails to six-inch 'pokers' of frightening geometry used to frighten walls into yielding. Also 'chappal' nails that looked like dadas of thumbtacks...Father never went to a cobbler and didn't believe in stitching and gumming. All nails were second-hand; I don't know where he got them from...they were all skewed and straightened by dexterous blows of his hammer turning them with one hand continuously, like a kebab.

3. File:

Although English language boasts of a million or more words, the single word 'file' has to serve seven different purposes (I checked Webster) including 'a shrewd or crafty person' (this was news to me). Anyway, Father's file was a long triangular prismatic thing with its wooden handle missing. I guess it was the opposite of 'sharpener'...rather like a 'blunter' of sharp edges. I saw him use the thing to blunt his fingernails (not to be confused with the iron nails) 'cut' with an old and used 7 O' Clock blade...he was adventurous alright like Nino.

4. Cutting Pliers:

This ghastly object served a double purpose...'ply' and 'cut' recalcitrant nails; and sometimes fingers and thumbs.

...and sundry other devils.

His Nails Box was, I suppose, Father's Lightning Conductor for his perennial defeats in bouts of perverse arguments with his wife...like my laptop.

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I am always intrigued by visions of 'nailing a lie'.

How does one nail a lie? What size and which hammer does one use?

The whole of this afternoon I was trying to come up with the 'best nailed lie' of modern times and I zeroed in on the gaily advertised 'unsinkability' of RMS Titanic which required a nail of glacial proportions; no?

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