Power tools

The Vol-in-Law is now in a position of leadership on our street - he's involved with the neighborhood watch (distributing leaflets, point of contact with the cops and so on).

And because we now feel we must be more upstanding members of the local community, it's time for us to trim our hedge. It is, frankly, a bit of an eye sore and a little crime magnet in and of itself. Not once, but twice, stolen items have been dumped behind our all-concealing front-hedge. The most recent incident involved a schoolboy's, the previous a preacher's briefcase.

We have a pair of old-fashioned shears, but the frequency of my pruning has been so poor that I now can't manage the hedge with the old loppers. I've been after the Vol-in-Law to let me buy a hedge trimmer (much like a chainsaw, only far less useful for home defense) for some time, but we have a rule that both of us have to agree on the purchase of expensive or bulky items. Anyway, with the new pressures of command and the eyes of the neighbours beady upon us, the Vol-in-Law finally consented to the electric hedge-trimmer.

I go off on my own to the hardware store and I select my hedge trimmer (mid-range, nothing too flash, nothing too cheap) and I spot something I've always, always wanted - a chipper-shredder, on sale no less. With that, I can chip and shred, and make much better compost. Well, the Vol-in-Law and I have this agreement thing - and the shredder is both expensive and bulky, so I phone him up and ask "Can I buy this shredder? It's on sale..." and believe it or not, he says yes, that he knows how I like my power tools.

I make my other selections; bedding plants, an axe and some lightbulbs and I proceed to checkout. Well, the guy at the checkout, - I can see that he's probably not your swooftest and I sort of let him not charge me for the lightbulbs and the ax (though how he missed the ax or the lightbulbs that I laid on the counter, I just don't know).

Well, you know that karma thing...

Checkout guy overcharges me for the shredder, fails to take off the clearance reduction and that's more money than the free ax and lightbulbs, so I complain, and it takes them twenty bloody minutes (I kid you not!) to refund me my money. But finally I get the money, I get the ax and I...

go home, and it starts to rain so I can't use either of my new toys.