Tape Measure Repair for Dummies

Tape measure spring

It's never clear to the research team whether some of the nominations they find represent utter dumbassery on the part of the freelancer who posted them. After all, in the case of anything submitted to the former eHow website, the author may have known full well that the post was bogus but also knew that it would be easy to get it past an ignorant content editor and collect the stipend. Today's nominee, a Greyson Ferguson post entitled "How to Reload a Stanley Tape Measure" (still at eHow.com) is a rather good example of the syndrome.

Our staff carpenter, staff woodworker, and staff handyperson all noted that you can buy a replacement tape for your Stanley tape measure in case the tape becomes worn out or broken. That's what all of them assumed from the "reload" in the title. Ferguson, however, was having none of that:

"One of the great features of the Stanley tape measure is that you can extend the tape, lock it down so it stays in place, then release the lock and watch the tape automatically reload back into the tape measure's case."

Yup, Greyson decided that the word "reload" referred to the tape's ability to automatically retract, and that's why his instructions included such helpful suggestions as,

• "...pushing up on the lock button releases the pinch on the tape measure and should pull the tape measure back in." – Now why didn't we think of releasing the lock, especially after we'd set it in the first place?
• "Remove all objects off of the tape measure. Objects resting on the tape may weight [sic] it down, preventing it from being extracted [sic] back in." – Love how the boy avoided saying "retracted." Is he cunning or clueless?¹
• "If the tape is bending or drooping in any way, it may prevent the tape from reloading..." – Avoiding that "retract" thing again, eh?
• "Manually feed the tape back [in]... until the Stanley tape measure catches and reloads automatically." – Sorry, Greyson, that "catch and reload" ain't gonna happen... ever.

Besides the fact that Ferguson insults the intelligence of the average ten-year-old, it's rather obvious that he had no idea that replacement tapes are available² for your Stanley tape measure. If the tape doesn't retract automatically – a child pulled it out too far, or the spring inside the tape has broken – that's a whole 'nother problem, but if you have a worn-out tape, you can follow the instructions on the packaging and replace it.
Or, you can be like our Dumbass of the Day and pretend that "reload" is the same thing as "retract," which is apparently the same thing as "extract." Well, not that last: it's a very different verb, Greyson.

¹ Based on his twelve previous appearances herein, we think "clueless" is more likely...
² Admittedly, they're getting hard to find.

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