In a scene worthy of MacGyver, Saint Francis Desales High School was recently the epicenter of a historical timber crisis, subsequently coined the Great Dowel Disaster, in the world of woodworking.
Rumor has it that this upheaval rivaled the tension of the Cuban missile crisis, had the urgency of a hot pizza delivery, and showcased the anxiety of a squirrel on two espresso shots.
It all started on a typical Tuesday, during the lobotomizing third period of Woodworking 101, when Bobby "two-left-thumbs" McGonagall, a sophomore notorious for accidentally creating abstract art, struck again. This time, Bobby had “misunderestimated” the dimensions of his wooden crane project.
The dowel, meant to be the spine of the crane, was about as appropriate for the task as an alpaca performing ballet. Bobby had procured a dowel roughly the diameter of a prairie dog, for a crane model that barely stood taller than a soda can.
He held up this tree trunk to the rest of the class, and the room fell into hushed whispers, save for the intermittent snort of stifled laughter. Hold your plaster of Paris, Michelangelo, this wasn't the David. It was more like Goliath straight from the Redwood forest.
The sound of a dropped chisel could be heard, followed by the whispered prayer of a frustrated woodworking instructor, "Mother of Miter Joints...”
Then, to everyone's surprise - including his own - Bobby, mortified but steadfast, reached into his backpack and pulled out a humble toothpick. A frigging toothpick! The classroom erupted into laughter. Whispers of “Bobby's lost it” and “Is it April Fool's already?” echoed around the room.
But Bobby wasn't deterred. In a scene that would've had Rube Goldberg clapping his hands in glee, Bobby began crafting an ingenious solution with his toothpick.
He whittled, he reinforced, he doubled, and he tripled. The toothpick began to morph into a miniature replica of the intended dowel—a functioning counterpart to the mighty redwood log he had initially proffered.
The room fell silent, tightening like a drum skin. Bobby held his breath, carefully affixed the crowning piece, and voila! A crane earned its wings... sort of.
Suddenly, a roaring round of applause erupted from the class, even from the instructor who, let's face it, thought his career was over 20 minutes ago. "Way to pick your battles, Bobby!" they trumpeted.
In the end, we can all learn something from Bobby's toothpick technique. In woodworking, and in life, size ain’t everything. It turns out that with enough patience, persistence, and a pocketful of toothpicks, your Redwood dowel failures could become the bedrock of your dowel-sized successes.
Remember, folks, it's not the size of the dowel in the crane; it's the size of the crane in the dowel.
Whilst we might not see a sudden surge in toothpick dowels in the Sears catalog or IKEA instructions anytime soon, Bobby's example will live on forever in the annals of Saint Francis Desales High School: The "toothpick" crane, a testament to the underdog, a tribute to ingenuity, and a reminder that perfection is not necessary to create something wonderful, and a frigging toothpick can save the day!