working with thieves

“things tend to sprout legs around here.” – anonymous co-worker

i was looking in the bottom drawer of my cart and noticed that my channel locking pliers were not in there. then that feeling of dread washed over me as i remembered that i left them out in the shop while working on a stupid range rover with gigantic lug nuts that kept getting stuck in the socket. knowing full well that i would never find them back, i searched the shop anyway.

i think the joke is on the thief, however, since those pliers only cost me $1.333333333. so i didn’t really lose much. that’s the nice thing about buying cheap tools; when they go “missing,” it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg to replace them.

later in the night, i was trying to find the location of an oil filter when one of my good co-workers replaced the batteries in my flashlight for free. one good deed erases the heinousness of getting a tool stolen.

the lesson of the day is to put your shit back when you’re done with it. i should have seen the warning signs.