Nothing But Love :: golf blogger

Engrave Her

I got an electric engraver from one of the close-out stores. It was like what ... two-ninety-nine or something like that. Cheap. Why do I need like a fancy engraver that they have at ... say ... Things Remembered or a place like that, if that's still in business. Whatever. I got this electric engraver a few weeks ago; so, ... notice the semi-colon ... I took it out of the indestructable, space-age polymer blister-pack -- I started doing that at about noon ... that was yesterday ... and I finally got the cobalt blue engraver out of the package this morning.

I've never had an electric engraver before, and you've heard stories about men who have literally gone like utterly insane and engraved nearly everything in sight around the house. I mean, I represented a guy who once tried to engrave his dog ... well, the dog's collar, while it was on the dog. Then the dog went berserk. And the guy tried to hold the dog down, then the dog like just reached back and bit the guy in arm or somewhere; so, the guy kind of like tried to engrave the dog's head with his electric engraver, and the wife was all mad at him; so, he said, "If you don't shut up, bitch, I'll engrave you." Well, the police thought that was some kind of death threat ... that he would kill her and bury her and all, "Your Honor, engrave, he wanted to engrave her."

Then it escalated to holding the wife hostage with his arm around her neck and the engraver right there at her temple, like he was going to engrave her skull or something; the engraver was electric, and not battery-operated, and there came a time when the plug came out of the wall socket ... and well, that was all she wrote for the guy. The police jumped on him and took him into like serious, unholy custody, ya know, just like L.A.-style, only this guy was white ... so CNN didn't show up with like its whole array of cameras and slo-mo equipment with special graphic capabilities to make the captions that tell us so much about what everybody is thinking and seeing and not seeing. No, nothing like that ever happened -- he just got arrested.

They said like he totally tried to kill her with a deadly weapon, but it was only a fucking electric engraver; so, it all got worked out as like a simple assault. And the dog, he was okay. I'll tell you this, though, about that -- back in the judge's office, "chambers," if you will, where the lawyers meet with the judge like totally out of sight and like totally out of hearing of the people in the court room, and, particularly, the guy ... the client ... the accused, who doesn't really especially need to hear everyone totally laughing their asses off back there.

Well, ... what, you're shocked? What did you expect to be happening? Like you were expecting everyone to be all solemn and shit and official-like, saying in hushed tones, things like -- "He held his wife at engraver-point, your Honor."

It's not like that at all ... it's like, "Whoa, what kind of loon is this guy?" and the judge says something like, "That's what happens when a guy gets an electric engraver ... the wife should have known that would happen," all the time guffawing, eyes watering, unable to catch his breath. The judge damn near had a heart attack right there. So, right away, when you're representing a guy like that, you like play into that game ... you totally give them the laugh; then you kind of like work out the deal, even though the guy has some serious problems and you try to get him some help for his anger ... anger management courses and the like ... and, oh yeah, you agree to forfeit the engraver to the police. The police like shit like that ... getting forfeited property, like Corvettes and SUV's and engravers, of course. You know, they have guns to engrave ... and handcuffs ... and prisoners.

Anyway, I got the engraver out this morning to engrave a name and year on a Christmas tree ornament. The directions are on the little cardboard insert; and believe me, I don't ordinarily look at instructions for power tools, but the second bullet point -- I did a double take, actually -- it reads: With the pollex, push down on the switch.

Pollex ... who the fuck wrote these instructions? Is there some kind of part called a pollex attached to this thing? There's no schematic with the fucking tool ... it cost only like two-ninety-nine; so what could I expect?

There's a button ... must be the "switch" they're talking about ... and there's a raised dial thingy ... probably to adjust the cut. And the little rubber cover of the tip. I take that off ... and where's the pollex? I mean, there's not much more on this thing -- at least, there's nothing that looks like a "pollex," whatever the fuck that is, to push down the switch. Totally fucking stupid instructions, if you ask me.

Husband: What the fuck is a pollex? It says, "With the pollex, push down the switch." What's a fucking pollex?

Wife: Your thumb.

Husband: Why the fuck don't they just say "thumb" then?

Wife: For times like this.

What the fuck.

Posted by Bill at January 1, 2007 10:01 PM