I had a tricky time over the weekend, helping a friend to get his new health food shop ready to open. It looked as though everything was going well, with the shelves up and all of the nutritional supplements and snacks arriving on time, but despite everything being in place and looking perfect there was something uncomfortable about the space. Eventually we realised that it felt a bit stuffy and warm, just enough to spoil the atmosphere.
The problem was quickly traced to the jalousie window above the door, the slats of which had jammed over time making it impossible to open for ventilation. Well, we cleaned and oiled it, heaved and hammered, but nothing we tried made it move an inch. My friend then had the bright idea of taking one of the leftover wooden planks and pushing it between the slats, to give us a means of applying more force. It looked promising, with a stepladder acting as fulcrum and the two of us pulling down on the free end of the plank… but it still wasn’t enough. We needed more weight. That was when I looked around and noticed the bags of milk protein powder, which my friend had mistakenly over ordered. Tying some of them to the plank seemed to help, so we added a few more: there was a creak and a tiny amount of movement! We added more and more bags, over four dozen in the end. (1/2)