TRUCKING THROUGH ACE HARDWARE

I am babysitting at a house with a temperamental door lock. Thankfully, it's not the tumbler, because that would require more work than I am willing to expend and would definitely exceed my limited mechanical ability. No, it's actually the key mechanism that seems to be faulty. The key needs to be fed carefully, slowly, and with some wiggling akin to the fine art of safecracking or transporting nitroglycerin. To get the key back out again requires the strength of an Olympic powerlifter and the finesse of a brain surgeon.

I know graphite can help ease sticky locks, so I search around the premises for pencils. Not finding any, I have a mechanical pencil with me, so I give it my best shot, but, let's be serious here, folks -- that tiny, breakable piece of make-believe graphite isn't going to solve the problems of the world. I need the real stuff. The Ace Hardware stuff. The powdered graphite that dreams are made of. 

The problem is that my tube of graphite is at home, twenty miles away, in a plastic bin sitting inside a storage bench that is my workshop. I currently live without a basement or garage, so a large ottoman houses all of the tools I own (which are more tools than any uncoordinated person should own, and, by the way, why in the name of all things sane might I need a drywall saw?). In addition to this minor inconvenience, I am in Maine when I remember that I need to go to the hardware store.

My sister, who is more than willing to go on this adventure with me, shows me a spray graphite that she has stored in her garage. She tells me to borrow it, but, if I know me, I'll either lose the cannister or simply forget to return it. Plus, I really want the tube of graphite because I know the dry stuff works.

So, off we go to the local hardware store in southern Maine. (Not to make it sound like Maine has limited hardware stores. Just adding color to the commentary.) I am in search of lock-fixing magic. I grab a few other things that I need before buckling down to find the intended items. 

This explains how I come across something that fascinates me and brings me decades into the past: an old-fashioned kid's pedal truck.

Oh, sure. It's not your Barbie car or your PowerWheel or any of that mamby-pamby battery-operated crap. This isn't a toy for wussies. This is the thing of memories and sweat. If a child wants this truck to go, that kid needs leg power. Leg power and a coordinated steering frenzy, and hugely determined muscles to go up the teeniest incline, as well as nerves of steel when the damn thing picks up break-neck speed on any downgrades. If you think a loaded eighteen-wheeler losing it's brakes on hill is terrifying, then you've never been set loose on a runaway pedal car careening the downgrade to your doom and imminent death, not to mention guaranteed road rash.

Ahhhh, this is a Jean Shepard moment, a thrill akin to that Daisy Red Ryder Model 1938 steel smooth bore barrel 650 shot capacity BB rifle from A Christmas Story.  I turn a corner and find a second red push-pedal truck. Good gravy, it's like childhood nirvana! All we need now is Captain Kangaroo to jump from behind the cash register and tell us to jump into our little red trucks, shouting, "Get out there and help Mr. Green Jeans, you lazy little squeakers!"

I do eventually find and buy a tube of powdered graphite and a small cannister of the spray graphite-WD40 mixture. Better yet, I remember to bring them the next time I babysit. Best news of all, the dang stuff actually works like a charm. I don't worry about snapping the key off in the vise-grip lock any longer. 

I get to unlock my childhood and that silly door all thanks to Ace Hardware.