THE PUT-TER BACK-ERS

             A thing not in place is a thing lost is an age-old axiom.

The mechanic and carpenter are sure where their tools are; they just reach out to retrieve the required implement.

The surgeon requires particular instrument at every stage of the surgery and the nurse/OT attendant can hand it over in time only if they are properly kept.

All these instrument & implements after use have to be kept back in their proper allotted place, so that they are instantly available for use the next time.

This putting back of instruments/ implements - after proper cleaning if necessary – is of course done by an assistant or the mechanic himself if he is not very senior.

The assistant not only learns the trade where he is assisting, but also the associated practices involved in it; ‘Putting Back in the Proper Place’ is one of them.

courtsy - Printerest

This person who puts back the instruments can be called  “The Putter Backer”.

In case of surgeons, this person has to diligently count all the instruments, swabs, towels, etc brought into the operation theatre and accounted for at the end, to be assured that none has been left in the patients innards !

Tailoring is still flourishing for women’s boutiques, but is a dying trade for men’s apparel. The assistants around a tailor are issued counted needles at the beginning of work and have to count them back at end of shift as a safety measure to ensure that none is left in the customer’s garment to harm the customer. The master tailor entrusts this responsibility to a senior assistant who can be taken as Putter Backer there.

But this Putting Back does not work smoothly in all places.

The housewife knows where the required masala is kept; she reaches towards that cupboard and gets it; but no one else can reach out and find the requisite thing in her absence. Putting Back is a secret code in the kitchen, where only the LOH (Lady Of the House) sets the rule.

Sometimes Putting Back is forgotten, such as The Wife replenished the gloss on her lips in the car when going to friend’s dinner invitation. Next day the bed room was turned upside down searching for that lip colour, which ultimately was found in the car.

  Most better halves, when they get bitten by the cleaning bug, start taking down the curtains, asking you to remove all your trash (your books, notes etc) from tables, remove all books from bookshelves which need “proper cleaning”, move all the furniture, cushions etc with your help, but you are promptly declared as ‘unhelpful’.

Once done, the most forgotten, most unaccounted for Putter Backer which  is ‘yours truly’, i.e The Husband, is asked to Put Back all the things in their proper place, as she is too tired with all the back breaking cleaning up she has done “all alone”.

photo Nathan Cowley, courtsy - pexels.com

Yes, most things shall be declared as wrongly Put Back, and you shall be declared a useless Putter Backer.

Every household has a person who is definitely NOT a Putter Backer. Such a person shall always put things back in the wrong place and forget about it. When needed everyone have to spend time searching for it.

But the person who ALWAYS puts things back in their proper place is laughingly termed as ‘too finicky’, ‘unnecessarily fastidious’ or insinuated as a ‘Putter Backer’.

Well, the house is certainly a lively place with both these kinds of persons around.

 

Then there are a very small percentage of people, who are known as “finders”. They specialise in “finding” things which no one else could find. Their modus-operandi is unique. It works like this. Occasionally they ‘manage to put’ something in such a place where no one would think of looking for (taking care that no one has seen them handling it last). It could be a needle, scissors, key, tool or anything. When others have failed to find it, they shall appear on the scene and after some ‘searching’ for it, suddenly ‘find’ it. Gradually they earn a name of “finder”, ‘having good eyesight’ etc, and are often called to find a missing item.

Their reputation carries on in life; and most probably such a person being a girl, their parents lament that their ‘finder’ is gone to her sasural.

Well, here is wishing all the best to the “Putter Backers”, the people who do not put back and the “Finders”. The world is certainly an interesting place because of them.