May 4, 2007

Tool Envy

I'm a sucker for finely made tools. I don't care what they're for. if they're well-designed and useful, I want them.

As a writer, I own a fair number of the tools appropriate for my profession. Laptop? Check. Journals? Check. Thesaurus? Attested to in the affirmative.

My favorite writer's tool is my Pelikan fountain pen. I keep it in a leather case, where it remains pristine and gorgeous. I do use it occasionally. When I first bought it, I purchased some reddish-brown ink, thinking how nice that would look in my journal-kind of an old-world effect, like original manuscripts of 19th century poets. In reality, the ink looked like watered-down blood. My brown journal entries looked faintly disturbing, like the diary of Hannibal Lector. I tossed the ink but kept the beautiful pen. It's loaded with cobalt blue ink, which matches the translucent barrel of this nifty little implement.

Other tools in my collection include things I need for knitting. Well, the assortment includes things I don't actually use, but they're so cool I had to have them. I already had knitting needles from the last time I had enough time to pursue the craft - the 1970s. They are aluminum, in colors like metallic pink and electric blue. They're perfectly functional, but they're not beautiful. I can't resist buying the new bamboo needles when I'm in the knitting shop, even though I have the same size needles in metal or plastic at home. And that little tape measure that looks like a sheep? A must-have.

There are some tools I avoid. When I go to Bed, Bath, & Beyond, I hurry beyond the kitchen department, where the walls of stainless steel implements glint menacingly. Out of the corner of my eye, I admire the clever little pasta servers, shrimp forks, and olive pitters. The kitchen department has more specialized tools than even the woodworking section at Sears. Trouble is, I'm always drawn to the big shiny chef's knives, which I'm not allowed to have. Therein lies a story.

When Starter Husband and I moved to our little 5-acre farm in Indiana, we were big-time back-to-the-landers. For his 35th birthday, I bought him a Buck knife with a leather sheath to wear on his belt, something any self-respecting hippie-turned-farmer had to have. That knife spent a lot of time in the sheath, but even more being oiled and honed on a sharpening stone.

My gift was an obvious hit. He loved it so much that for MY birthday, Starter bought me a good set of kitchen knives to replace the scarred and pitted set I had bought at a thrift store. Why, just think how much easier it would be to slice all those tomatoes from the garden! Pickling season would be a breeze!

His own knife having been honed to razor-sharpness, he started in on the kitchen knives. Trouble is, I didn't know that. I was used to the Goodwill knives, which were dull and had little quirks. When I picked up my new stainless steel scalpel which had been sharpened by Daniel Boone the night before, I sliced a whole cucumber before I noticed that I had sliced a chunk off my finger as well. From then on, I was not allowed to use knives.

Flash forward 20 years. New husband, new knives. I had forfeited custody of the old set in the divorce. We both knew it was better that way. My new set of knives was "bought" using credit card bonus points, which means (we all are meant to believe) they were free. They came with a sharpening steel.

You're way ahead of me here.

So now, when I pass by the kitchen section, I ball my scarred hands into fists and barrel ahead. Never again will I be lured into thinking that because knives are beautiful and useful, I should have them.

But a sterling silver Mont Blanc with an 18K gold nib? Now there's a beautiful instrument. And it's hard to hurt yourself with it.