I get a thrill every time I buy some on sale. Or find something at a garage sale. Or make something myself that I could have just bought. I blame my sale-hungry father. That's right - I'm lookin at you, JOD!
It comes as no surprise then, that Craigslist is one of my favorite places on the internet. So much cheap stuff! With pictures! Impossible for me to resist.
I also grew up in a house where the ladies outnumbered the man 3 to 1. (4 to 1 if you count our dog) In order to fill the void that (I was convinced) my Dad felt having had only daughters, I learned how to be handy at a young age. By "handy" I mean I like trying to fix things myself, whether I know what I'm doing or not. I also learned from my Dad that power tools are way more fun than manual ones. Sooo, when I saw a $15 dollar cordless drill on Craigslist, I pounced. I'd been wanting one. Your life cannot be complete without a cordless drill to fulfill all your screwdriving dreams.
The thing about Craigslist that's not so great is the actually having to interact with the seller when you want to buy something part. You email them. You often end up giving them your phone number. You have to go to their house and talk to them. These are not things I'm in the habit of doing, but what can I say? Craislist, that foxy minx, brings out the risk-taker in me.
After a prolonged email back-and-forth followed by a few phone calls (uuughhh! why! email works fine!) I arrive at the guys house and pick up the drill. I fork over my $15 and he hands me a drill. I give it a cursory inspection involving pressing the trigger. It whirs. Ok. Sold.
Upon closer inspection I realized that I'd purchased a Tim Allen "Tool Time" drill. Yup. This is not something that instilled me with confidence, but too late. The drill is mine.
Fast forward a few weeks to the garden. It's hot. We'd just been to Home Depot Hell and we were looking at an empty patch of dirt and a pile of lumber. Time to start building! I pulled out my Tool Time drill and got busy drilling pilot holes. The drill starts making screeching noises. I continued as though this were normal drill behavior. The drill started getting VERY hot in my hand. Hmm. Maybe it just needs a little break? I could use a little break too. Building is hard.
We were finally ready to slap some boards together to start forming the frame of our raised bed. It was time to switch from a drill bit to the screwdriver attachment...wait a sec. There is a flat head attachment. WHERE IS THE PHILLIPS HEAD ATTACHMENT!?!?
It took me a moment for realization to dawn - I'd been Craigslist Swindled. That's probably what the whole "talk to me on the phone" business was about. The drill guy was gauging my familiarity with power tools and decided that since I was lacking, he would sell me a second rate piece of crap drill. I hate you, Craigslist man.
Ok, time to regroup! I can drill bigger pilot holes and screw the drills in by hand. Ok. Good plan. Only when I proceeded with my new plan, the drill didn't whir. It didn't screech. It made angry, chugging, clicking noises and the drill bit didn't move. Apparently I bought ironwood? No. This drill is CRAP.
At this point another gardener happened by and gave us the, "So, any clue what you're doing?" face. He was a secret gardening angel of mercy, I think, because the next thing he did was offer us his own tools. He would have built our beds for us but there was a (insert thrilling sport here) game on that he'd been looking forward to watching. He and his wife live on the other side of the graveyard fence, so he lent us his tool bag over the fence like a true gentleman.
Armed with working equipment, we managed to knock out 3 beds and hammer them into our dirt. They're not going to win any beauty pageants, but these babies were a labor of love and I couldn't be more proud of them!
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