ACCURATE TOOL DEFINITIONS

1. DRILL PRESS: A tall upright machine useful for
suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your
hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings
your beer across the room, splattering it against that
freshly painted part you were drying.

2. WIRE WHEEL: Cleans paint off bolts and then throws
them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of
light. Also removes fingerprint whirls and hard-earned
guitar calluses in about the time it takes you to say,
"SH**!!!"

3. ELECTRIC HAND DRILL: Normally used for spinning pop
rivets in their holes until you die of old age.

4. PLIERS: Used to round off hexagonal bolt heads

5. HACKSAW: One of a family of cutting tools built on
the Ouija board principle: It transforms human energy
into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you
attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your
future becomes.

6. VISE GRIP PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads. If
nothing else is available, they can also be used to
transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your
hand.

7. OXYACETYLENE TORCH: Used almost entirely for
setting various flammable objects in your shop on
fire. Also handy for igniting the grease inside a
wheel hub you're trying to get the bearing race out
of.

8. WHITWORTH SOCKETS: Once used for working on older
British cars and motorcycles, they are now used mainly
for impersonating that 9/16 or 1/2 socket you've been
searching for the last 15 minutes.

9. HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for lowering an
automobile to the ground after you have installed your
new disk brake pads, trapping the jack handle firmly
under the bumper.

10. EIGHT-FOOT LONG DOUGLAS FIR 4X4: Used to attempt
to lever an automobile upward off a hydraulic jack
handle.

11. TWEEZERS: A tool for removing splinters of wood
from fingers and hands, especially Douglas fir.

12. TELEPHONE: Tool for calling your neighbor to see
if he has another hydraulic floor jack

13. SNAP-ON GASKET SCRAPER: Theoretically useful as a
sandwich tool for spreading mayonnaise; used mainly
for removing dog feces from your boots.

14. E-Z OUT BOLT AND STUD EXTRACTOR: A tool that snaps
off in bolt holes and is ten times harder than any
known drill bit.

15. TWO TON HYDRAULIC ENGINE HOIST: A handy tool for
testing the tensile strength of bolts and fuel lines
you forgot to disconnect.

16. CRAFTSMAN 1/2 X 16-INCH SCREWDRIVER: A large motor
mount prying tool that inexplicably has an accurately
machined screwdriver tip on the end without the
handle.

17. AVIATION METAL SNIPS: See hacksaw.

18. TROUBLE LIGHT: The home builder's own tanning
booth. Sometimes called drop light, it is a good
source of vitamin D, "the sunshine vitamin," which is
not otherwise found under cars at night. Health
benefits aside, its main purpose is to consume 40-watt
light bulbs at about the same rate that 105-mm
howitzer shells might be used during, say, the first
few hours of the Battle of the Bulge. More often dark
than light, its name is somewhat misleading.

19. PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the
lids of old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and squirt
oil on your shirt; can also be used, as the name
implies, to round off the interiors of Phillips screw
heads.

20. AIR COMPRESSOR: A machine that takes energy
produced in a coal-burning power plant 200 miles away
and transforms it into compressed air that travels by
hose to an Pneumatic impact wrench that grips rusty
bolts last tightened 70 years ago by someone at GM,
and rounds them off.

21. PRY BAR: A tool used to crumple the metal
surrounding that clip or bracket you needed to remove
in order to replace a 50 cent part.

22. HOSE CUTTER: A tool used to cut hoses 1/2 inch too
short.

23. HAMMER: Originally employed as a weapon of war,
the hammer now-a-days is used as a kind of divining
rod to locate expensive parts not far from the object
we are trying to hit.

24. MECHANIC'S KNIFE: Used to open and slice through
the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your
front door; works particularly well on boxes
containing upholstered items, chrome-plated metal,
plastic parts and the other hand not holding the
knife.