Mechanicing Dream

GEARWRENCH Bolt Biter Impact Extraction Socket
Weirdest looking socket I could find
Still nothing like the one in my dream

I had a longish dream this morning, but I had some places to go and didn't have a chance to write it down until this afternoon and much of it has faded away. Here are a couple of bits I do remember.

I am trying to break something down. I'm using a largish socket wrench, maybe an inch in diameter, maybe two. It slips when I apply some force, so I turn it over and look at the socket end. It's some oddball shape, not like a standard 6 or 8 point socket. Doesn't appear to be anything wrong, so I check the size. It has a black oxide finish and it is marked 7.1 - 6 8/16 so it's apparently marked with metric and American sizes. There is a small mechanical slide switch in the side as well. It has a small steel button that barely projects over the surrounding surface. One position marked 'East Coast'. I flip the switch, but I cannot discern any difference. I pick up another socket of similar size. This one has a worn chrome finish.

Later on I am stripping the covering from a stainless steel control cable. The wire is maybe an eighth of inch in diameter, which is much larger than the typical control cables you find on a bicycle or a motorcycle. The rubber covering is old, hard and brittle and breaks apart easily.

Note that the business about the 'metric and American sizes' is nonsense. If we take 7.1 to be millimeters, that is approximately 5/16 of an inch, and the fractional part of 6 & 8/16 is the same as one half. No surprise, it was a dream. It could just as easily have been marked in hieroglyphics. In either case, neither is anywhere near the size of the socket wrench I was holding.

Mechanicing may not be in a conventional dictionary, but it is in the Urban Dictionary.