My radio only works with the antenna wrapped in foil and I refuse to fix it
There's an old radio in the studio, a Grundig my abuelo had in the kitchen, and it only picks up anything if the antenna is wrapped in a bit of foil and propped at exactly the angle I found by accident two years ago. If I move it, silence. If I bump the shelf, silence.
So I don't move it. I've built the whole morning around it. It has to be on before I open the clay bag, always the same station, some talk program where a man argues with callers about football and then they play boleros. I don't even like the program. But if it's quiet in there I start hearing my own head too much and then I sit looking at the piece for twenty minutes doing nothing.
I tried to replace it once, bought a cheap bluetooth speaker, and I used it for three days and then went back to the foil. The speaker works perfect. Maybe that's the problem.
Anyway it died this morning mid-sentence, no reason, and I spent an hour with my hands wet and no sound at all. Got more done than usual and I hated it. Anyone else got a thing in the studio that's broken in a useful way?
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Foil on the antenna is a decent ground plane if the connection at the base is corroded, so the fix is probably a fifty cent part and ten minutes with a screwdriver. But you know that. The angle is the thing you're not touching.
I've got a bench grinder that starts on the third try if you hold the switch just so. Been holding it just so for years. I tell people it's the switch.
"I tell people it's the switch" jaja, sure. Mine's the foil. Never mind that I could walk to the ferretería in four minutes and be back before the clay dries. The angle is the whole ritual, if I fix it properly it's just a radio again and then I have to sit with whatever's in my head at 8am. Your grinder and me understand each other.