Aluminum Screw

My new metaphor for living in Cambodia is ‘an aluminum screw’. Not the kind of screw you would use to connect aluminum - but a screw made out of aluminum. I came upon this metaphor while installing window brackets to keep the windows from flailing in the wind. I purchased the only available brackets at the local hardware store. They have a nice brass coloring and came with matching screws. I don’t have a drill so I used a hammer and nail to prepare the screw holes. Then I screwed the brackets to the wood frame. Each screw was instantly stripped - the screws were made of such soft metal. So I use the hammer to beat them the rest of the way into the wood. The hammer head shattered. It broke into three pieces like it was made of pencil lead. So I got a rock and pounded the screw in with a screwdriver. This worked but it was no longer a pretty solution. The brass coloring is scratched and even just a few days later the screws are oxidized. Whenever someone comes to the restaurant and says to me, ‘wow, you really have the life’, I want to show them my broken hammer and blackened screw.