Clicky house call

Tonight I paid a visit to Linn's to see Kristin & Ben and to inspect Ian's Clicky 120CT, which had jammed shut once again. For some reason, it has a defect that I've never heard of in a Clicky before: It was difficult to open when new, continued to be so difficult that Ian was reluctant to use it much for dread of having to replace the battery, and now it had become so completely jammed that it would not budge even with his prolonged efforts at it, so he passed it off for us to have a go at it and we passed it around throughout the night, with no luck. Finally, toward the end of the night, I decided some creativity would be needed. I searched through my pack for possible tools and pulled out two pieces of tether cord, each a few feet long. I tied one cord to each half with a tight prusik knot, wound the cords tightly around their half of the body in the appropriate direction, tied a loop in the ends, and then used some silverware from the table as levers, thus fashioning a crude strap wrench that was able to break the seal. Turns out his Clicky seems to have some kind of strange machining error that allows the threads to lock up when tightened all the way. Since it's not at all necessary for them to be tightened down completely, it's a minor problem as long as it's treated properly. I gave it a good greasing with Nyogel, closed it back up gently, and it was good to go.