Pelican Parts Forums - 'nother editorial

Most of my editorials are pretty specific to my magazines, but every now and then I write one that is a little more universal. I just finished this one and thought PPOT might enjoy it.

tool/to͞ol/
A device or implement, esp. one held in the hand, used to carry out a particular function.

I went shopping for tools the other day. I came home empty handed. Normally I find shopping for tools enjoyable, but this trip was so filled with sadness that I left the store without buying a single wrench.
I have three shops that I work out of. One is in a detached garage at my home. This is where I do maintenance on my cars, trucks, and lawn equipment. I keep a complete set of mechanics hand tools in SAE and metric sizes there as well as a floor jack, ramps – the usual things a maintenance shop would have. I have another small shop in my basement with woodworking and home maintenance tools. Four miles away, I have another shop. It‘s in the back of our office building and it is where I work on WD. I keep the welder, sandblaster, and welding torch as well as another full set of SAE mechanic’s tools there.
That description is really more theory than reality. My tools tend to migrate from one shop to another and every few months I have to repatriate all the tools to their correct homes. A few weeks ago while working in the garage I realized every single Phillips screwdriver had found its way to the house. I stopped what I was doing and spent an hour reorganizing tools so most of them were in their proper place. I left the shop at about noon that day knowing everything was more or less in order and the Phillips screwdrivers in particular were where they belonged.
I returned at about 4:00 PM and knew immediately something was amiss. The screwdrivers were gone. Every one of them.
Obviously I’d been robbed – but in a very strange way. An expensive battery powered impact wrench and a new Craftsman ratcheting torque wrench were still sitting on the bench where I’d left them just below the screwdrivers. A closer look revealed the tools in the open top of my tool box were untouched, but every drawer in the box was empty. The thief had taken ratchets and extensions, box end and combination wrenches, allen wrenches, punches, and chisels. He went for weight, not value. If he had been after something valuable to resell he certainly would have taken the impact and torque wrenches.
To the thief these tools were probably just so much scrap metal that he could sell quickly and without a trace. To me, they were more than just tools. I had owned many of them for decades. Over the years they had come to fit my hand just right and were as familiar and comfortable as a pair of old jeans. Some had stories to tell. The thief took a magnetic wrench that I used for removing Volkswagen engine mounting bolts. It holds a bolt that is above the transmission and is impossible to get a standard wrench on. Years ago I had forgotten and left it on a customer’s car. The owner left for college on the west coast before I noticed I hadn’t returned it to my tool box. I bought a new one and thought that was the end of it, but five years later the owner came back to Ohio and brought his car in for some work. I tried to fit my new magnetic tool on the engine bolt but something was in the way – it was the tool I’d left on the car five years before! It had traveled thousands of miles across the country and back under that car and returned to me. I used to love to show the traveling wrench to people and tell that story.
Some of the tools were important to me because they were gifts from friends or hand-me-downs from relatives. Some came from my uncle, who took the time to etch “Ertel” into each of his tools in his elegant handwriting style. The greatest loss of all was a small box of my father’s tools that I had kept after his death. I remember him teaching me how to use them. I tried so hard to hold them in my soft little fists the way he wielded them in his large calloused hands. I learned respect for machines and the tools that keep them working by watching my dad use those tools. These few wrenches were all I had left of that. I could replace everything else, but these worn old tools of my father’s were priceless.
I’ve always been happiest when working in the shop. My tools were more than, “ a device, one held in the hand, used to carry out a particular function.” To the thief the were a few pounds of scrap, but to me they represented many years of happiness and the pleasure of completing a job well done. The thief got a few pounds of scrap, but I’ve lost an adulthood of happy memories and a connection with my family that will never be replaced.
The new tools at the store just didn’t feel right. The were cold and didn’t fit my hand the right way. I couldn’t take them home. I know one of these days I’ll have to go back. I’ll go back and refill my toolbox, but I’ll never replace my tools.