I recently purchased some new parts for my Shopsmith; nothing major, just a couple of random bits that, much like some of those belonging to machine’s operator himself, had finally gotten around to showing some signs of aging. Unlike my own random bits, however, I was able to order replacements for them quickly and cheaply online.

This little setback, coupled with below freezing temperatures – rendered even colder by nearly constant winds – has kept me out of the workshop for the last few days. “Screws fall out all the time;” Judd Nelson’s John Bender tells us in the 1985 movie, The Breakfast Club,” the world’s an imperfect place.”

As to whether or not the falling out of screws and other apparently random events signify an imperfect world, poised to self-destruct without notice at any given moment, or a perfect one, in which evolutionary forces ensure that things which no longer serve are constantly replaced by newer, more efficient ones, I’ll leave to the philosophers to decide.

For now, it’s enough to know that the process exists, and we – or at least some of our random bits – are apparently subject to it…