Where was this screw supposed to be?

Why is it that every time you take something apart, and then put it back together again, there is always an extra piece?

Frequently a washer, often a screw, sometimes a piece of metal or plastic that honestly doesn't look like it was part of the thing you just took apart. There is always something left over.

But the most confusing thing is that the item that was was taken apart, and then put back together, works again. So did it really need the left over bit? Was that left over part really necessary? Did it really come from the item in the first place?

If there are parallel dimensions, is there one where something is lost every time an item is taken apart and then put back together? Is this left over screw from that dimension?

Is this the key to traveling to another dimension? Become an integral part of a mechanism, wait for it to break down, and then escape to a new world when someone takes it apart to fix it? Actually, no, that would only be from the other dimension to ours. It's our dimension where the extra pieces appear. So is this where aliens come from? Did someone in a parallel dimension already have this idea, and they managed to jump to ours using this scheme?

Is this an alien screw from another dimension?

Will the evicted people be living in the alley now?

An extremely odd thing is happening in the alley behind our building right now.

The people from an apartment a couple of floors below ours are being evicted today. There were a lot of complaints against them and the person who owns the apartment is kicking them out. But now they are sitting on their furniture in the alley behind the building. I've never seen anything like this.

So will they be leaving? Or do we have squatters in the alleyway now?

One of the drawing points of this building when we decided to buy a condo was that no more rentals would be allowed, anyone who bought one of the places would have to live in it. Over time that should effectively get rid of absentee land owners who don't keep the place well maintained. But there are still a couple of apartments being rented out. The place with the evicted squatters is one of them.

The Pride Parade happened earlier today, less than half a block from us, and there is still a party (or several) going on in the street, but here just below us are evicted people sitting on their furniture in the alleyway. This is a bit surreal.

Aug 6 update: Ooh, this building has quite the information gathering mechanism, everyone knows lots about everyone else who lives here... the people evicted were essentially using the place as a shanty town with a roof. Every available surface had an inflatable mattress on it, and there were at least 18 people living in the 2 bedroom apartment. It is, as expected, a complete shambles. New sinks are going to have to be put in, etc. etc. The fire that they started on the lawn outside their balcony will need to be rehabilitated by the gardeners, thankfully we have automatic sprinklers in the lawn that put the fire out!

So the scoop on the furniture in the alleyway is: the people were just sitting and resting there for a while. These people somehow found another apartment a couple of blocks away and were using their two office chairs with wheels to move all of their stuff. I'm not sure how they got the old couch onto those chairs... would have been interesting to watch. So the problem has moved on. So much for buying a place and renting it out as an easy way to make money!

It is unfortunate that there was one really nice guy in the group. He was friendly and tried very hard to be helpful whenever I ran into him in the lobby. He's now lumped into the "group of scum" on life's scorecard, but he could be so much more. That's the tragic part of life.

Is that a threat or a surrealist promise?

We are actually going to do it, after keeping old furniture and other junk in our storage locker for 10 years (after moving it from the storage locker in our Toronto apartment building, where it sat for 5 years...) we are having the 1-800 Got Junk people cart it all away!

When we booked the removal appointment online, one of the steps was to give additional comments. They have examples of additional comments. The punctuation and placement of the example comments makes them fascinating:

I have to leave by 11:15, or it's a sofa bed, TV and yard waste

Dude. If they don't leave by 11:15, it's a sofa bed, TV and yard waste. Is that a threat of metamorphosis? Does Salvador Dali come in and change reality for them?

Is this what happened in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy when Ford and Arthur are thrown into space and the spaceship Heart of Gold picks them up? They changed into sofas for a while. Was it because they didn't leave by 11:15?

A sofa bed would be a major item to pick up and remove, is the threat really that the soft feather pillows will get to stay and the junk removers will have to take the couch if someone doesn't leave by 11:15?

The mind boggles. I think I need more coffee. Or maybe less coffee. Or maybe a couch...