For some jobs, Vice-grips and duct tape just won’t hack it!.

This revelation struck me in the forehead like the preverbal ball-peen hammer just last week when I took my SUV in to my repair shop to have its power steering pump replaced.

Mike, the mechanic at the shop, was in a foul mood when I arrived. Hmmmm, unusual, I thought, there’s usually a big smile across his face.

“So, Mikey, what’s wrong?” I asked.

“It’s that damn Valvo I’ve been working on, Mikey blurted out. I don’t have the right tool I need to repair the turbo and because of that, this job - that pays 8 hrs flat-rate (a mechanic’s fixed fee for a service) has now taken me more than twice that long to complete.”

I could immediately relate. I had heard all this many times before growing up the son of a professional mechanic.

Mom and dad’s finances were tight when I was a kid, just like they are for us all now. Consequently, some of the biggest fights I can remember my parents having were over my father purchasing his professional tools. Since mom was the one who handled the finances, she would go ballistic when my dad came home from work with news that he had just bought another specialty wrench for his toolbox.

I can hear it now, plain as day - “Robert, do you want to eat this week or buy tools?”

His answer was always the same - “Alice, those tools make my job faster, my work better and my paycheck fatter!”

That ended their discussion and mom was left with the task of working her magic with the family finances.

· In both Mikey’s and my father’s case, having the right tool for the job had a direct affect on their ability to support their families.

But, choosing the right tools can sometimes mean the difference between life and death.

Case in point – Rattle Snake Removal

Recently, Michael, my next-door neighbor, came frantically knocking at my garage door. “Bruce, can you come out here and tell me what kind of snake this is,” he excitedly asked?

I followed Michael to the neighbor’s backyard and there, from a distance; I immediately spotted a large snake making its way across the yard. It was hard for me to tell what it was but when I got closer, I froze in my tracks. There slithering in the grass in front of me was a HUGE Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake.

I could hardly believe my eyes, so I yelled for Michael to get me a shovel. Then, with shovel in hand, I approached, this rattlesnake the snake, but I quickly realized that the length of my shovel was not nearly long enough to keep me out of the striking range of this big boy’s fangs, so, I backed off.

The rattlesnake and I assumed our defensive postures. We were in a standoff. Then the situation began to deteriorate rapidly as the crowd grew  – so my neighbor, whose back yard it was that we were all standing, called the local wildlife removal service to come get our wayward rattlesnake.

In the meantime, I abandoned use of the shovel for an extendable fiberglass painter’s pole. In my opinion, the painter’s pole was a more appropriate tool for this job. It still allowed me to control the rattlesnake, but now from a much safer distance.

Then the professional handler arrived on the scene and I was shocked to see that our wildlife person came equipped to perform this removal armed with only a plastic garbage bag and a 28-inch snake tong. “You’re kidding me - right!” was my first response to this guy now standing beside me. Mr. Wildlife removal took a quick glance at the tongs in his hand then at this pi**ed off 60 inch - 20 lb rattlesnake lying on the ground in front of us.

He knew what I meant!

“How bout I pin the head with my pole then you grab him with your tongs?” was my suggestion.

So, that’s how it went down. Our neighborhood rattlesnake received a professional chamfered ride in a black garbage bag to Herp heaven.

· In this situation, the right tool for the job turned out to be some common sense and an improvised painters pole. The pole provided distance, but common sense is what kept everyone safe.

"The most expensive part of most cordless tools are the batteries. We purchase the cells for production runs of tools in larger quantities and therefore they are less expensive to manufacture than the smaller runs of replacement batteries."

"Margins on tool sets are low and the replacement batteries are much higher. We need to get people to buy a tool so they will buy accessories for the tool down the road."

"Modern tool batteries often last longer than the tool with which they were purchased. So we focus on keeping the battery price down in the kit form."

"Replacement accessory batteries have more packing and handling as a percentage of their cost."