when i was seven or eight someone gave me an old meccano set and i was excited. i wanted to build things like the ones in the pictures on the box. but i sometimes (often) couldn’t get the little nuts all the way onto the little bolts. they would get stuck halfway. and so i would try to force them and become so frustrated i wanted to kill everyone and myself.
there was no one to tell me about the thread, that you have to make sure the nut is on the thread properly and if there is any resistance it means it isn’t and you have gently encourage it or start again from the top and that you can damage the thread by forcing it and then you will have to throw the little nut and/or the little bolt away because the thread is ruined and it will never work again and if you don’t, your box of nuts and bolts will be a mixture of nuts and bolts with working and non-working threads and you won’t know which is which until you try to use it and since it was a used meccano, the previous owner may not have known about threads and so you may have inherited a box of nuts and bolts with a mixture of working and non working threads to begin with.
i would’ve made a good father to someone maybe. i would have gently explained about the threads and the little person would have been comforted and consoled by my gentle fatherliness. i wouldn’t have been the kind of father who would have said angrily, well you’re fucking stupid, you shouldn’t force the nut onto the bolt because you will ruin the fucking thread!
or maybe i would have the second time. i fucking told you not to force the fucking nut onto the fucking bolt haven’t i? didn’t i tell you NOT to do that? what are you fucking stupid? how many times do i have to tell you? give me that fucking meccano set. i am going to put it in the garbage. i should never have given it to you.