Creak, creak, creak. It was starting to drive me crazy: everytime I sat down, shifted, rotated, or just moved in my desk chair it would creak in this deep, metallic register that I can only imagine was driving my downstairs neighbor crazy too. Being a problem-solving handyman extraordinaire, I spent more than half an hour try to get the creaks out of this chair, and in the process was reminded of some valuable lessons. After using WD-40 on nearly every joint, bolt, and connected piece, the chair was unfazed. Creak, creak, creak. I started unscrewing things, taking pieces off, looking for hidden possible sources of creakage… no dice. Creak, creak, creak. The problem was that the creak was seemingly everywhere. Despite my best efforts, I could not pinpoint from where the noise was emanating. Creak, creak, creak. Frustration! Finally I took a step back, deep breath, and thought to myself, “Let’s think outside the box here. There must be a logical solution.” I examined the chair top to bottom to find any possible source of creakage that I missed before. The fabric? Not possible. The arm rests? Possible, but very unlikely. The casters? The casters. The casters! That had to be it. I had not originally thought to check these, but it was certainly worth a shot of WD-40…

As it turns out, the answer was indeed the casters. How apropos that the squeaky wheels would get the grease. The noise was actually coming from the metal inserts that connect the casters to the metal base of the chair assembly. But, meh, details. No more creaking. The lessons I was reminded of today are that things are not always as they appear, and the solutions to your problems are sometimes hard to find, but patience and persistence rule the day.