Guarantee

...from the You Can't Just Make this Stuff Up department...

My friend D borrowed my tree pruners. They're very old. I don't know how old. They belonged to my dad. A year or so after Dad died (roughly ten years ago) I found them in his garage and thought, "I can use those." They were beat up then but they worked.

Angel and I hauled the pruners to the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains when we moved there. We hauled the pruners to the edge of the continent when we moved to the 48th parallel. They leaned against some shelves in our garage, and like I said, D borrowed them. Last week. He's got some really nice (and very tall) fruit trees, and this is pruning time... past pruning time for some trees, even.

So D was pruning away happily. Then he stopped to speak for a moment to his elderly neighbor. He laid the pruners on elderly neighbor's driveway. Then he was interrupted by a phone call. Then, somewhat suddenly, someone came to elderly neighbor's house in a car. That someone hurried into the driveway and drove over my pruners. Long extension pole bent into pretzel-hood. Saw crooked. Loppers out of whack.

Now these are Sears Craftsman pruners. D, being a good guy, wanted to buy me a new set to replace the ones that had so badly lost their fight with a motor vehicle. He called Sears. The nearest Sears is in the next town over... oh, about forty minutes away in good weather. The conversation went roughly as follows:

"Hi. I'm calling from the village at the edge of the continent. Do you carry 12 foot tree pruners?"

"Hi. No, sorry, we only carry the 14 foot model now."

"Oh. Well, okay. My old 12 footers were run over by a car. If you have a 14 foot model in stock, I'll drive over and pick one up."

"Okay. That's fine, but... are these Craftsman tree pruners?"

"Yes, they are."

"You said they're old. Can they still be identified as Craftsman tree pruners?"

"Well, yes, they can."

"Then bring the pruners over and we'll swap them out. That's the Craftsman guarantee. If it fails any time for any reason, we replace it. Even if you run over it with a car."

My friend D did just that. Now the Old Amigo has a new set of pruners. I like that guarantee. I understand that Sears stock is up lately. Perhaps there is some corporate karma involved.

I'd like to think so.