Man-Saw

Lowe's is having its grand opening this weekend.

In the last eleven years I've gone from nothing at all (Germany, Japan), to a half-assed hardware store (Del Rio, TX) to having a Home Depot a half hour away. Now, finally, Lowe's is opening about 20 minutes from my house.

Lowe's to me now is what Toys 'R' Us was to me as a kid. Home Depot is cool, but Lowe's just rocks. I've spent a vast amount of money in that place. One of the coolest Christmas gifts I got in recent years was a $75 gift card to my mecca...

When we bought our first house three years ago I had a power screwdriver and a hammer. Emily had more tools than I did from before we were married. As soon as we moved in she requested a shelf over the washing machine. Wth one sentence my Dad started a downhill slide that I haven't been able to stop since:

"Well, you're going to have to go get a power saw."

That was in January of 2003. By August I had roughly $3000 worth of power tools in my garage and was building Sammy's first bed from scratch. I had a late show at work that day and I was working on it until around 11 AM. When I left I hit the garage door button, but by the time I pulled away the door had popped back up, leaving it open with my mother-in-law and kids in the house.

At some point in the three hours it was left open before Emily got home, some jackass pulled up and walked off with my benchtop drill press, a brand-new router table, a 10" mitre-saw, and that power saw my Dad told me to get. I didn't realize it until Saturday when I went back out to the garage to work on Sammy's bed. Of course, our insurance didn't cover it.

It does now.

I was so pissed off that we stormed out and drove three hours to San Antonio and went directly to Lowe's. I blew $1300 on replacements, except this time I bought a 200 pound full-size drill press, and the Man-Saw which is the dominatrix of my garage. This DeWalt 12" sliding miter saw can cut through a 4x6 as if it wasn't even there. I bolted the Man-Saw to a table, sat back, and announced out my open-garage door: "Let's see you bastards come try to steal this!"

And I bought a new power-saw, too.