Metal Fatigue

So there I was, sitting in the chair my brother left behind when he went overseas. I call it the 'Ah, Mr. Bond' chair as it's black leather (well, leather substitute), you can lean back in it somewhat and spin around in it. I haven't tried stroking a white cat while sitting in it yet as there haven't been any cats available - and let's face it, once a cat gets loose in my room there'll be no finding it again.

Anyway. I was sitting there, when *pop* the left armrest gives way. "Crap," I think in my sage way, "Something's broken!" So I look down, and see that there's a screw protruding from the armrest, about in the area there's suddenly no support from. "Oh," I think, "it must have come out somehow."

Well, I was right, but the 'somehow' involved it snapping itself in half, leaving a bunch still screwed in the corresponding socket. "Nothing else for it," I though, "Won't be able to reattach it there without some serious technical know-how, so I'll just remove it."

So I start to remove the armrest. As I discovered, however, this is one of those chairs where the solid plastic armrests actually attach the back to the base of the seat. I discover this with just about all the screws completely out, so then I have to deal with the back of the seat flapping about. So I reattach it, tighten all the remaining screws, and, well, despite the snapped screw it's now as solid as it ever was.

Does this mean the moral of the story is if something snaps while screwing screw a bit harder and it'll be solid again? Or maybe it's like the Matrix sequels where the moral... no, wait. It can't be like the Matrix sequels. There's some kind of story attached. Whatever, then.