Because I wanted to write about something else

What I learned while installing a new convertible top on my 1971 Alfa Romeo Spider:

• If the book tells you to use a 1/8th drill bit to remove rivets, you will generally have the best results using a 1/8th drill bit
• Failing that, a much larger drill bit will do.
• Eventually.
• Large drill bits make rivet heads spin round and round and round and round without actually removing them, but with a bit of skill (pushing), they break off anyway.
• Looking into your tool box and finding a 1/8th drill bit two weeks later can lead to learning colorful new combinations of swear words.
• Ziplock bags are your friends.
• Drain holes are not.
• When given the chance, all small, unbelievably rare fasteners will always seek out said drain holes.
• A magnetic wand will not reach down a drain hole to rescue a fastener.
• No matter how many times you use "f*ck" in a sentence, cursing will not levitate a fastener out of a drain hole.
• When you plug the drain holes with foil, the fasteners will hop and dance around it trying to get in (see "glue solvent", below).
• RIT dye will correctly dye the cloth trim of a 33 year old Italian convertible.
• After seven coats.
• Cats enjoy stepping in fresh dye.
• Cats enjoy laying on freshly dyed cloth even more.
• Dye will stain tile. And cats. And fingers. And carpet.
• If you run from the kitchen to the garage very fast you will only drip dye on the carpet once.
• This does not impress your wife.
• If you use glue solvent in a small closed garage, you will not pass out.
• If you use glue solvent in a small closed garage, you will see the walls turn interesting colors.
• Always open the garage door before using glue solvent.
• Having the Euro gain against the dollar just before you order parts sucks.
• It takes two people to put a front bow gasket on correctly.
• You learn several new and colorful ways to construct a sentence when one of those people is a short Italian yankee who is busy with her own project.
• An awl (used to line up holes & punch through vinyl) is the most useful tool on the planet.
• It's a bad sign when you have to pull the front of the top up at least half a foot to connect it to the rear of the car.
• Cheap tops are cheap because they leave out about 6 inches of material over the length of the top.
• Two small, skinny people are not enough to close a new cheap top the first time.
• Even when one of them creates new swear words on the spot.
• No matter how many times you use "f*ck" in a sentence, cursing will not telekinetically close a top.
• There's a certain kind of oil filter wrench that can actually double as a top-closing tool.
• Almost...
• Two people, a filter wrench, colorful swear words, and about an hour of labor is barely enough to close a new, cheap top.
• The glue used to cement portions of a convertible top is the cartoon glue Wiley Coyote tried to use to stop the road runner. Gooey, color of butterscotch, foul smell, sticks to everything? Yup, ACME glue-all (aka "pliobond").
• A small pint-sized paint can full of ACME glue-all is awkward to use inside a car.
• A plastic cup is much easier to manage.
• ACME glue-all dissolves plastic cups.
• Alfa probably didn't make the interior of this car vinyl specifically to resist giant oil-slick-like glue spills, but it did so anyway.
• Using ACME glue-all in a tight, enclosed space will not make you pass out.
• Using ACME glue-all in a tight, enclosed space will not make you see funny colors.
• Using ACME glue-all in a tight, enclosed space will make you wish you hadn't eaten that big greasy burger so quickly.
• I have an amazing ability to resist nausea.
• Ellen does not.
• Only wimps sketch how things are put together before they take them apart. Real men squint at diagrams and spend two days puzzling it out themselves.
• Just because one obscurely routed, impossible-to-get-at cable is hard to pull tight doesn't mean the other one will be.
• It is always better to check that an obscurely routed, impossible-to-get-at cable is actually attached to something before pulling it tight.
• A very small screwdriver is very useful for rerouting cables pulled half-way out of their pockets.
• Ziplock bags are your friend
• There's nothing quite as satisfying as the crystal-clear back glass of a top you put on yourself.

Even if it did take three weeks.