Amazon, You’re Killin’ Me

There aren’t many things that draw my attention like a moth to a flame. Pens come to mind. I’ve got hundreds of them. This is not an exaggeration. Ask my mother. (I’d buy a Mont Blanc if only Jonny Depp came with it.) I can’t walk by a pen display anywhere without at least looking. I think it might be a sickness.

Clothes – not so much. Occasionally, I’ll see something I just have to have but it’s rare. Shoes – pretty much the same story. (Well, there were those cute sandals last weekend ...) Sorry, Carole. I didn’t get the clotheshorse gene, much to her dismay. But somehow, I did seem to get an overabundance of the power tool gene. I’m a regular freak of nature, I am.

I can spend hours in Sears Hardware and get lost in a Harbor Freight store. So that’s why when Amazon recently sent me an email touting their latest power tool sale, I purposely avoided opening it. I’m not really in the market for anything right now, but once I start looking, you just never know. It's serious danger, Will Robinson. It's the equivalent of putting a loaded crack pipe down in front of a junkie.

I tried to get a fix by cruising and admiring tools at Lowe's last night. (I bought the first round of gravel and the metal edging for the walkway. ) I thought that reading a few boxes, parking my palms around some power would be sufficient. It wasn't.

I finally broke down and opened the email. In under a minute, I had a few things on my wish list. I looked at a Black and Decker cordless drill (something I don’t really need but would be nice to have) … or maybe I’d prefer something a little more powerful like a DeWalt. In any case, I don’t need either of them really. I checked out an assortment of handtools, some of which I do need. (I'm currently using an almost 30-year-old hammer, for instance.)

Then there was this fantastic little power cutter, “ideal for wallpaper.” Hmm ... there are two bedrooms waiting to be done.

Someone please stop me before I kill.