The Bandit! Journal

Bandit! wishes everyone a fun-filled, wild & crazy Tool Day! Bandit!'s staff has been celebrating Tool Day for over three dog generations. The idea for this bacchanalia of hardware came to Bandit!'s guy one cold winter when he was particularly broke and noticed that Valentine's Day required shelling out bucks he didn't have, to buy something he didn't understand that was going to wilt and get tossed in a week anyway. And he decided he wasn't going to take it anymore! Most holidays that require gift giving have, more or less, a parity between the sexes. Guys and girls can both expect to both give and receive gifts. But, not on Valentine's Day. Oh no! That's definitely rigged in favor of the ladies. Guys are held hostage by ruthless florists who can charge outrageous prices for flowers that nobody really needs anyway. But guys have to shell out serious bucks for flowers - or else. And there's that whole language of flowers stuff that guys just don't stand a chance of ever comprehending. I mean, most guys can figure out that red roses stand for love, black roses symbolize death and that you, never, ever give a white rose to any girl with whom you would like to have sex. (Is that redundant?). But what does a pink rose or a green rose mean? What would you be saying if you gave her a bouquet with six red roses, two pink roses and four orange roses? Or how about white roses with red tips? Would the meaning change with the amount of red on each white rose? Guys just don't get it. The number of flowers required is also a mystery to guys. You used to be able to get by with a dozen roses - unless you'd actually been caught in the act of doing something amazingly dumb. (So, I hear anyway). Now, florists claim that 12 roses suggest that you think about her half the time - you need to present 24 roses to tell her you think about her every hour. Some florist somewhere is scheming to get guys to spring for a rose per minute, but 1,440 of the darned things are going to be tough to haul around. (Some people have pointed out that she is unlikely to have a vase large enough to handle them anyway. Those people are all women - guys understand it would be a quick project to empty a keg and cut it down to size.) We'll not even begin to excogitate on the meaning of different types of flowers. What would a guy be saying to a girl if he presented her with a sunflower, heliotrope, periwinkle or hibiscus? Guys will never understand this stuff. Most guys struggle to learn just the basics; like honeysuckle or tulips don't mean what guys think they should. Give her either of those and she'll suggest a palm - if you know what I mean. So, Bandit!'s guy, having just paid off his Christmas credit card bills had to wander into a florist - a totally alien environment and attempt to solve the three-dimensional puzzle of type, color and quantity of vegetation required (the fourth dimension, time, is a constant). Of course, since he married the girl who received the flowers, he claims to be innocent of weighing the implied commitment vs. the possible short-term returns. Anyway, it seemed only fair to Bandit!'s guy that there should be a holiday where guys were the primary beneficiaries of gifts from women. And where the women are in the dark about exactly what they're saying with their gift. Having once feared that two of his friends would come to blows over the benefits of a drill press with a 1/2" chuck over the savings of one with a 3/8" chuck; - it was obvious that women should give gifts of tools. Let them puzzle out the subtle implied meaning behind a miter saw or if they're ready for the commitment that comes with along with giving a guy a joiner. Let her worry about what brand she needs for the right impression. Can she sort out the symbolism behind Ryobi, RIGID or Snap-on? All that remained was to picking an appropriate day for the celebration. Since Valentine's Day celebrates a Saint, it seemed logical honor another Saint. St Joseph, being a skilled carpenter seemed like the obvious choice. And so Tool Day was born. Bandit! celebrated in a most dignified manner: