I bought my first hedge trimmer from a second-hand shop last weekend. The lilac bush out front was getting out of control and I was looking for a quick and easy way to get it back under control. Ideally, I would have preferred using explosives or, at the very least, FIRE, but ever since I decided to live inside the city limits, I have had to accept that that sort of thing is frowned upon.
There are, however, power tools designed to rapidly disassemble a tangled mess like a lilac bush that are almost as satisfying to use as a flamethrower. I’ve never owned a hedge trimmer before, but that long serrated cutting blade with about a hundred opportunities to lose a finger make it look like a tool I should have owned for many years.
I didn’t want to pay full price for a hedge trimmer without taking it for a test drive, though, because I’m cheap that way. Lucky for me, I knew where I could get one for a reasonable price. The resale shop down the street has a basement full of equipment made for yard work. I was out running errands Saturday afternoon, so I stopped by on the way home, scrounged through the pile of hedge trimmers until I found the cheapest one, paid a price Scrooge McDuck would’ve been happy with, and took it home.
Guess what? It turns out, you get what you pay for. I plugged it in and revved it up at the store and it seemed to work fine, but that little test drive didn’t take into account that the bad bearing in the motor didn’t make warning noises until it warmed up. After three or four minutes, it screamed like a cat after its tail gets stepped on.
But the five minutes or so I could put up with the noise gave me enough time to whip one of the lilac bushes into shape so easily that I knew I WANTED ONE. So now my inner McDuck will have to do battle with my gadget-loving guy brain, a battle that it will lose. It’s only a matter of time.
This Is Drivel 