Move Over Tic Tacs
Now, I’m not the sort of person that goes out and buys a giant screw driver set on a whim, but this weekend I had need for three uncommon drivers. Thus, it was off to the hardware store, that special place where you can find gardening tools and chain-saws under the same roof. The most important driver, a phillips 00, usually only comes as part of a larger set and in this regard I get pretty lucky: a 75-piece driver set on sale for $35. To put this into perspective, a respectable screw driver tends to retail for $5-10 on its own. Phillips 00? Check. Torx T8? Check. Hex drivers? Check, and we’re done.
Here’s where it gets crazy. On my way to the register I pass another box, this one almost identical save for that it has 95 pieces and it’s not on sale. Instead of doing the rational thing and laughing my way past it, I stop and begin to wonder if this larger set is a better deal. Sure, it costs more, but it has more tools, and it’s favourable to grabbing the (marginally) smaller kit and topping it up with twenty more tools at $5 apiece. Wait! There’s a problem: I only need three screw drivers. What good are twenty extra tools that I don’t actually need? Maybe I’ll build a rocket ship one day and need a reverse-robertson 2.8x wireless hammer, but that’s still nineteen rocket hammers short of a good deal unless I actually end up using every piece.
Fortunately the madness passed and I left with the smaller set, but I had to wonder: what sort of person impulse-buys a 95-piece screw driver set?
Comments
One Response to “Move Over Tic Tacs”
Leave a Reply
The sort of person who wants to build a FOUNDATION, Byron! The sort of person who plants trees for his grandchildren to shade themselves beneath, and then eventually bulldoze to make room for a jacuzzi. The sort of person, frankly, Byron, who values COMPLETION over utility, necessity, value, and clear physical space.
(Good for you, dammit.)