How to Murder Your Ruler
Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997
Lesson first: The easiest way to injure one is to drop it on a hard floor. Although rarely fatal to a strong ruler, the impact of the collision is likely to round the corners. I found the Quilter's Rule to be more vulnerable to damage than the Omnigrid, but did not attempt a scientific study. I suspect that the exposed aggregate floor in my dining room is harder on rulers than a normal surface would be. After all, my new Rowenta has already survived two dives onto the carpet in the bedroom. So maybe lesson first-and-a-half is to live somewhere with heat-resistant, soft, flooring. Anybody who wants to experiment with Chesapeake Bay Retrievers underfoot, I'll mail you one.
Lesson second: Rulers having three dimensions (such as the Fingerguard)
are likely to loose pieces when they're shoved under the couch
indiscriminately. Stepping on them would probably exacerbate this 
tendency - for some reason, I've avoided this experiment, thus far. When the
corner breaks off, it may very well take part of the cutting edge with it,
effectively shortening your ruler by a number of inches. This is
annoying. Neither aquarium sealant or superglue will put the broken piece back on.
Lesson third: If you put little plastic dots on the bottom of your ruler to keep it from moving around, make sure you really want them. I decide they were worse than the original problem. I felt that the edge of the ruler was moving up and down, and I suspect the dots made my cutting LESS accurate (and there's not much room to spare, with my cutting!). Plus, the only way I could keep the strip from splaying out at the end was to place the ruler so the edge of the fabric farthest from me was directly under a dot. What a pain!
Lesson fourth: If you put the dots on, and then decide to take them off, DO NOT USE CITRUS-SOLV TO REMOVE THE STICKY RESIDUE. It did take off the residue, but it took off the lines, too :-( So now I have a dinged-up piece of acrylic that's unusable for cutting strips smaller than 6"
Darn, time to buy a new ruler.
Katherine, in California's great central valley, where spring has sprung. The robins are back, the tulips are blooming, almond blossoms are delicately scattered all over my driveway, and I better rub it in now because it'll be 110 before we know it.
