By: Nekogirl

Nekogirl — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 21:50:59 +0000

now that should have been a write up… /chuckles sheepishly.

By: Cash Money

Cash Money — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 23:45:16 +0000

The year was 2000. The work of trying to read several hundred pages of the “classics” of English literature a night had become the work of skillfully pretending that I had read several hundred pages a night. Flying in the face of academia and the general way of things, my GPA was on the rise and I was riding high on my own perceived Outlaw English Major status.
This nonsense had to go on long into the night. 1 o’clock, 2 o’clock. My most esteemed colleague (and roommate), Sergio Blingbling, a more conscientious and perpetual academic heaving his #2 across the room and snapped, “I am done, but I will never be able to sleep. I am too wound up on Papa’s Medicine,” his codeword for Irish Coffee, “I must go somewhere and do something to unwind.”
“We could go to the Neptune,” I said, “White Russians and toast. We haven’t made an appearance since the Bull Riding Championships on ESPN and the night manager will worry.”
“No,” he said, standing up and fumbling for his keys, “even I am shocked to hear myself say this but I cannot sustain anymore sugar or booze tonight. We have to go to Wal-Mart and walk around for a while. Just until the springs unwind.”
“It’s the only thing,” I conceded, standing up from my speculative Robinson Crusoe fiction I was passing off as a term paper, “a brisk constitutional… in The Park.”
New pillow cases, Vegeta action figures, the collected works of Nicholas Cage— all chirped about merrily like they were the daffodil shoots coming up early. The cobwebs were starting to clear nicely as we rounded the corner into the hardware aisle. I hefted a funny hammer.
Offhandedly, I said, “I think I need one of these, but I don’t know what they do.”
From behind the end of the aisle, a form slid out as though on rails.
“That’s a ball-peen,” said a strangled voice.
It was late… or early… and I was sleep deprived, a little drunk, and probably just days if not hours from a neurotic episodes and I could barely interpret the visual cues I was being given. Jacket comprised of forest. Beard of steel wool. Teeth of a few errant niblets. A man? The apparition again spoke thus:
“The ball-peen hammer’s crowned, or rounded, edge works metal smoothly without marking it. The ball portion can straighten, soften and expand metal into the desired shape. The other, straighter end of the hammer can be used to strike punches and chisels.”
I balked. Sergio boggled.
The creature continued: “Actual peening is not used in most metal fabrication operations today but it was the original use of peen hammers. Peening is striking welded or riveted metal to make it as flexible as the rest of the metal in an object. The result of peening is a strain-hardening property added to the metal.”
Then. Nothing.
“Oh. Thanks,” I managed to say, my voice a whispered croak.
“See ya,” it said and slid back, moving but motionless, into the next aisle.
Sergio and I looked at each other and then at the tool in my hand and we know… that was the day that we would always remember as the one when we met Ball-peen Hammer Man.

Comments on: Walmart Heydays…

By: Nekogirl

By: Cash Money