Before a Fall
I thought there wasn’t anything more humbling than having people ignore my stuff at the neighborhood garage sale, but that was before I went over to trim the brush growing along the fence at our rental property. It’s a house with a vacant log next door to it. The lot is on the corner, so if you’re working there, you’re pretty much the entertainment for the whole neighborhood and anyone driving through. I brought over my little garden bag with my foldable Fiskars saw, my rose pruner, my small nipper (like a hook shaped branch biter) and my big nipper (more leverage). I brought a couple of other tools as well. I brought Andy’s little Toyota pick-up (Hey, they don’t know it’s not mine). I got to de-brushing along the fence like the She-rah that I am and within 10 minutes I had two different neighbors offering me the use of their way cooler tools.
One thought his band-saw would work lots better than my Fiskars thing, and he started sawing away at the volunteer trees. Yeah for me, but I was mortified. Was I that inept? The other had a big nipper that had never been left out in the rain and he thought that might be better than mine. I tried it out and truth be told… it was better than my rusty one. But I gave him his back and said thanks, but I felt better trashing my own tools than his. I see two possibilities for personal embarrassment here: either I looked so clumsy and ineffective at brush trimming that they took mercy on me, or they thought my tools were too girly, even though I thought I was being very competent and dude-like. Woe is me either way. Wait. Am I whining about this? No. It was kind of cool.
And I never would have met the guy who I used to just call the cat-guy, but who I now call Sean. I can’t remember the other guy’s name but he’s moved from a nobody in my mind to the ‘long-haired guy with the nice big nipper’. I’m just guessing that’s an acceptable moniker for almost any guy.
Father of Five said,
June 18, 2008 at 7:17 am
There is something of pride in doing a job with your own tools (and even more so when they are not the biggest or best tool around)…
Which leads me to affirming your “guess” about the moniker “long-haired guy with the nice big nipper”
Because… if you are a “long-haired guy with the nice big nipper” and you can do a job well with your own tool (even if it is not the biggest or best tool around) – you can hold your head up high as you strut your stuff!
Wait…. isn’t “nipper” a British slang for…. um….. oh, never mind..
Ok… wow… now that that is out of my system….
Hey She-Ra, what a fun little post!