When I first started my job at an electronics company, I worked with this older lady that was…let’s say, not enamored with me. In other words, she reminded me of an older female version of me. Whenever I did anything wrong, which was often, because I was new, and I make mistakes all the time, she would get mad at me by saying, “Ben, I’m going to take you to the wood shed.” At first, I was like, “Oh, that’s really nice. She wants to give me a tour of the ham radio shack.” But then I realized that she meant that in a bad way, because old people use sayings from their time period. In her time, they didn’t have the internet or TV, so they entertained themselves outside or something? I finally figured out that it meant that she was going to take me out behind the shed and beat me. But since she was old, and weak and frail, and I was young, and strong and powerful, she meant it metaphorically. It just meant she wanted to correct me by telling me the right way to do something.

Eventually when the student became the master, we would just joke about it, because that is how I become friends with someone. I make fun of them, and they make fun of me. It became such a running joke that one year for my birthday, she made me a mini woodshed out of Lincoln Logs. It was one of my most precious possessions until my wife made me throw it out in the move from Seattle.

My wife was so inspired by the woodshed gift from my co-worker, that she decided to get me a full-sized woodshed as a gift. And by gift, I mean she made me go to Home Depot, and purchase the woodshed for our backyard, because our old metal shed was too small. She said it was so I could store all my tools, like the riding lawn mower, so I could use that to mow the lawn, especially over the mole holes. You could tell they liked to use our yard as a baseball field, because that their holes were in the diamond shape. She was also kind enough to allow me to store all our other household tools there, like the rakes I loved to use to rake things, the hoes I liked to use to hoe things, and the tools I loved to use to put together furniture for her. She’s always so kind with her gifts.

She was even kind enough to let Home Depot deliver it to us, but she didn’t want Home Depot to have all the fun. So they dumped a bunch of lumber on our yard. When I mentioned that the pile of lumber didn’t look like the shed we purchased from Home Depot, she said, “Part of the gift is that I’m allowing you to assemble it.” I couldn’t believe it, How lucky was I that I was given the gift of “some assembly required”. She must have seen the bitter look on my face when I got to assemble my daughter’s mini kitchen on Christmas Eve until 1 am and figured I would want something much bigger to assemble. Of course, I would want to assemble a miniature version of a house.

Since I didn’t want to experience the joy of putting a mini house together by myself, I allowed some of my local church members to come and help. They were smiling the whole time, thinking I’m spending a beautiful Saturday not watching football, and instead helping a fellow church member build his mini house. I couldn’t let them have all the fun, so I sent them home before they could help me complete the shed. Instead of allowing the Home Depot or my church friends all the joy, I took my time finishing the shed. Over the next couple of months, I cherished looking out the window, at an almost complete shed, not wanting to finish it, until my wife finally encouraged me to finish it.

We were finally blessed with a full-sized woodshed that I could take my son out behind. But the best part was that I could store all the tools I had just used to build the shed, and would never use again.

Here’s the thing about tools. They only work when you do. For instance, a hammer isn’t really useful if you’re trying to type something on your keyboard, but they are useful if you’re trying to break into a house. A screwdriver isn’t useful if you are trying to drive a car, but it can be useful if you’re trying to break into a car.

Some tools aren’t useful at all. Like people that are tools. See below:

The Anti-Self-Awareness Tools – Tools that are consistently late to things but get mad at other people when they are late to something. Or people that are super irresponsible and then tell you about someone they know that is irresponsible. I’m not sure if I know anyone like this personally that they might live upstairs in my house.

The Try Hard Tool – Like Bruce Willis in Die Hard, but instead of taking down a terrorist organization by leaping off the top of a 30-story building with a hose attached to their waist, these tools run…off their mouths trying to impress people on social media.

The Easily Manipulated Tools – I guess I’m this one because my family has convinced me to work all the time to provide for the family. They convince me to do so, because it not only gives the “family” money, but it keeps me occupied so they can spend all my money. They are such needy people, because they prefer sleeping indoors, and require at least 4 walls and warmth. They also claim that they need food “to survive”.

The Arrogant, Obnoxious Tool – These tools frequent the hallways of schools, workplaces or parties. They will do anything for attention, including saying outrageous things, talking about how rich and smart they are, and wear attention getting clothes or laughing too loud at something that isn’t funny. Kind of like Pick Me girls or Pick Me guys too.

Family Member Tools – These can be members of your family, such as brothers, that you are close enough to be able to insult relentlessly and remorselessly. Then there are members of your family who you aren’t close with at all, but you can still insult relentlessly and remorselessly, because they are tools and deserve to be mocked.

If you haven’t found yourself in any of these tool categories, then I can tell you that you’re an Anti-Self Aware one.

Did you know that Bitter Friday Giftures are a tool? They allow the low IQ tools to be able to understand blog posts with pictures. You know, like how kids need picture books when they are young, because they are so bad at reading? Coincidentally, see below:

Whenever I made a mistake…

It was a sweet gesture…

Until I realized that was old school speak…

Eventually, it became a running joke…

The woodshed had such a profound effect on me…

But somehow, she forgot to mention…

And that assembly wouldn’t just be some assembly…

That shed that I mostly built by myself…

Well, not all of them…

Or these…

Or these family…

ARRRGGGHHHHH

Bitter Useless Tools Ben