The Southwest Voice

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My Christmas List?  A Poinsettia and a Cordless Screwdriver please--

I bought a cordless screwdriver some years ago and could hardly put it down!  Everything in the house was screwed in, tightened down and updated.  I bought new towel racks and put them in.  I fixed an old bicycle and even changed out all the hardware on the cupboards.  Talk about fun!  Of course I had to charge the blasted thing twice a day but for a klutz like me, that is much better than tripping over an extension cord! 

During my early cordless screwdriver days, the kids came over for dinner.  My son-in-law always waited for dinner in a comfy chair I have that used to kind of bounce when you sat in it.  It bounced no more!  After asking for a heating pad for his dislocated back, he asked me what in the name of heaven I had done to that chair.  I explained about the cordless screwdriver, apologized, gave him some aspirin and a heating pad and said I’d fix the chair  “tomorrow.” 

Tomorrow came and I still felt bad about that chair and the discomfort it caused my son-in-law.  First on my list of things to do was to fix the chair. I knew if I expected him to continue coming to my house for dinner, I had better loosen up that chair’s rocking mechanism! 

I went out to my tool drawer in the garage and couldn’t find the cordless screwdriver.  Where could I have put it?  Actually, I found the thingy that you put the screwdriver part into and I found the charger but I couldn’t find the part that you have to have in order for it to do what it is intended to do.  It had a Phillips head and a regular head and I loved that thing!  Where could I have put it? 

I started cleaning out cupboards.  I found a battery operated hedge trimmer that I had to have one year.  The novelty wore off pretty fast when I found out it was actually work, even though it was “automatic.”  I thought maybe I should try it again.  I couldn’t find its charger! The charger to the screwdriver didn’t work.  I tried. 

I cleaned out a couple more cupboards and drawers and found millions of old pens and pencils, a couple of nails the size of a telephone pole (why did I have those?) and miles of picture wire!  I think I intended to frame and hang some water colors my mother did years ago but I probably went out and bought the cordless screwdriver that day and just shoved the picture hanging stuff under something somewhere.  I do that.  I bet you do too!  If you are retired and have time to go around tightening up or redoing everything that doesn’t bark, meow or tweet, you know what I mean. 

I’m still pretty worried about my son-in-law.  Worried enough that I am asking for a new cordless screwdriver for Christmas.  I’d like them to unwrap it before they give it to me so I don’t have to fight with the plastic.  I am asking for just one more chance to do what a retired mother-in-law should do – cook dinner and make everyone feel all cozy and loved at least once a year at Christmas!