LABOR SPENDING DEVICES

I was browsing around this home improvement center the other day. Normally I don’t frequent such places since I’m hardly very handy with tools. But once and a while I like to drop by and check out the stuff while pretending that I’m a Mr. Fix-it kind of guy. Of course since I am not really one I do have to fake it. Which doesn’t work too bad in some cases since I have listened enough to guys who do repair junk talk to learn a few key words. Enough to get by as long as nobody asks me any technical questions.

The reason I even get involve with any of this in the first place is well, I like the idea of looking like I’m a man’s kind of guy. Hey even us wimps have a right to pretend once and awhile. And to me nothing makes you seem more like a real honest-to-goodness manly man that knowing about tools and repairs and crap like that. At least it sounds good.

So there I was poking around the tool area and picking them up to examine them. Not that I had a clue on what some of them were for, but I thought it looked impressive.

That’s when I saw some sign about what are called “labor saving devices.” Which are supposedly in theory items that save you time if you use them as opposed to doing it some other way.

Now the whole idea with this naturally is that you have some reason to honestly use that kind of device in the first place. And while it might save you time my question is does it save money too? Okay I don’t want that trite response about time being money. You are assuming by that comment that I’m I have a reason to do whatever labor that I need to save time by buying some tool. That’s a pretty darn big assumption.

Which is my point. See while some guys might sit there and look all smug and say I got this gizmo (that’s one of those cool buzz words repair guys seem to use a lot) that saves me “x” amount of time when I use it.

The one thing they never mention is about how it cost them a bundle in order to have the privilege of boasting I can do whatever faster than anybody else. It is just me or do I smell a con that appeals to somebody’s pride with this thing?

In any case I generally avoid those so-called labor saving devices since it means you got to spend labor at some point with them. And there is one thing I don’t like to do it is spend labor! I’d rather pay somebody else to sweat if I can.

I figure it is more fun to pay some other joker to spend his time trying to save a buck by forking over the cash to get some tool he might only use once and a while. That’s find by me.

As for my garage, well I’m happy to just park my car in it. Oh I do have a few tools on the walls. There are few souvenirs of the time when my male ego got the best of me and I gave into that urge to buy some labor saving device. But I still figure you know that it isn’t all bad since it might impress some handyman I have to hire for whatever. And in the process I do get to be free from worry about it ending up a labor spending device since the tool is just going to sit on the wall and look cool. Now that I call a real savings!