Because girls are worth power tools

I have spent 20 years trying to gift The Husband with power tools that he doesn't want to have and most certainly doesn't want to use. I have done this in the sneaky, indirect attempt to get what I want: a finished Honey-Do list.

Well, ladies (and gents), it's so not working.

When The Sister came and helped me paint my kitchen (before The Flood), she brought along her automatic battery powered screwdriver. Before that, when we were doing the refacing part of the project, she brought along her pneumatic brad gun.

I was terrified of the brad gun, and only slightly less intimidated at the prospect of using the battery-powered screwdriver. That's funny, really, because I grew up with a mom who did not move furniture around walls ... she moved walls around furniture.

But I was the littlest, and the baby, and everybody worried that I wasn't strong enough, and so I was given the all important job of fetching jugs of ice water and tea and lemonade.

After 20 years of THAT, I can fetch you a brilliant glass of lemonade, yes, ma'am. Power tools? Eh, not so much.

While we were putting on the hinges for the doors, The Sister handed The Kiddo the battery powered screwdriver and said, "Go to it, girlie." I looked on in horror, because of course The Sister doesn't have small fry of her own (just 30 kids that she teaches during the school year), so she wouldn't know that it was a Bad Idea To Give The Kiddo A Power Tool.

But then I thought, "Self, you have taught The Kiddo how to use your santoku knife to chop veggies, so maybe The Sister isn't so crazy."

The Sister wasn't so crazy.


(The Kiddo using a power drill on her SECOND project -- a kitchen that's not mine!)

It was a humbling experience, seeing The Kiddo tackle something that intimidated me. But it was also liberating. If a nine-year-old kid could do it, then surely I could tackle my fears of power tools and that Honey-Do list on my own.

Then my dad let me borrow his shop vac to suck up the water during The Flood, and I was hooked. I'd never bought The Husband a shop vac, because he wouldn't have appreciated it, and honestly, I couldn't think of why I'd benefit from one.

Not so. Tawna Fenske's Pythagoras has the right idea. That little sucker is handy. It was after I'd zapped all the cobwebs off my ceiling fan blades AND vacuumed out my garage AND vacuumed out my car that I realized the ultimate truth:

Girls are worth power tools.

Now how is this connected to writing? Bear with me. You know that computer you've been limping along with, the one that still runs Windows 98 and has the browser you can't upgrade? You're worth a new one. You know how you've been putting off moving from dial-up to DSL or buying that new modem? You're worth it. That printer you want to throw out in the street? Order a new one and condemn the old one to the recycle bin. You're worth it.

You know that Honey-Do list you've been nagging Hubby about? Grab that power drill and learn how to use it. What's the worst that could happen? (OK, I'm a writer, so we really don't want me thinking about the worst because I'll come up with a humdinger, so let's rephrase that -- what is most likely going to happen?)

Archimedes said that given the right lever, and a place to stand, he could move the earth. Well, I'm here to tell you, Archimedes knew a thing or two about how much more efficient we could be if we just had the proper tools to work with. And he would have LOVED power tools.