Quiz

Not The Sharpest Tool In The Shed Quiz

It’s been a weird week—or at least weirder than normal. On the upside, I discovered that my last novel The Seventh Devil was part of a list of best spooky reads that appeared in October on a well-known book review website, and I didn’t even know about it, so that was cool. And my publisher likes the sample chapters I sent him for the sequel, The Devil You Know, so I have incentive to keep writing. On the other hand though, I’ve been plagued by intensely specific dreams about my new antique business, particularly one in which I was at Staples trying to buy supplies to frame pictures of old book pages from Alice In Wonderland with black silhouettes of rabbits superimposed on them. At one point, the salesperson and Ken began having a conversation about them working together on a different project while I used the photocopier and compared prices on fancy price tags. It’s exhausting—I mean, if I have to work all night as well as all day, what the hell is the point of being retired? And speaking of working, I had a disturbing incident in which a feverish coworker who’s a rabid anti-vaxxer/anti-masker came right up in my face on Monday to tell me that he was sick and needed to sign out. Apparently he’s been sick for days with all the symptoms of COVID, but he refused to get tested because he doesn’t believe that COVID is real. Needless to say, I was a little upset. Luckily, I was double masked and triple vaccinated. My best friend was able to get me a rapid test and thankfully, I was negative. In addition, I saw this magazine on the newsstand dated January 10th.

Did no one tell them? Was her death a secret? And while I admire the mid-December optimism, I really think they should have pulled the copies, or at least changed the cover once the lovely Betty White had passed away on December 31. But I did manage to find some amusement this week, especially after seeing the following ad for a set of axes:

So now I have a mydangblog Tool Quiz for you, in the same vein as the ad for Three Wood Choppers:

a) Dirt Tosser

b) Hitty Thing

c) Marathon Man

d) Ho

e) Stabby Bastard

f) You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out

g) Reverse Autumnal Vacuum

h) No. Just No.

i) How Did I Cut The Cord On This Thing WITH This Thing AGAIN?! Goddammit.

j) The One With The Square End

Bonus: Biggest F*cking Tool In The World

Here are the answer choices. Try to match them and see how well you do!

1) Exacto Knife

2) Robertson Screwdriver

3) Hoe

4) Hedge Trimmer

5) Staple Gun/Nail Gun/Red Ryder BB Gun

6) Shovel

7) Table Saw That Ken Removed The Safety Guard From

8) Hammer

9) Drill

10) Leaf Blower

Bonus: The Guy Who Breathed His COVID Germs In My Face

Correct Answers: A6, B8, C9, D3, E1, F5, G10, H7, I4, J2. Bonus: Yeah, that assh*le.

I hope you were able to get them all correct. Remember, there are a lot of tools out there and it’s important to know them when you see them!

Missed Opportunities

A few days ago, on Christmas Eve Eve (yes, that’s a thing and I’ve celebrated it for years by opening a special bottle of wine), I was on the hunt for that last elusive gift. Ken is an avid photographer, and I wanted to get him something camera-y, but I have no idea what kind of cameras he has (Nikon, Canon, Sony, Polaroid?) so I went to this strip mall in the next town to a little camera store that I found by googling “Camera stores near me”. A few days previous, I had phoned one of the larger chains, and when I told the man on the phone that my husband liked photography and that I was looking for something fun to get him for Christmas, he said, in a kind of weird way and with a heavy English accent, “Oh, ahem, I really couldn’t tell you…I would really have no idea…I’m probably the wrong person to ask.” Wrong person to ask?! You work in a goddamn camera store! But looking back on the incident later, it occurs to me that maybe he thought the conversation was more porn-based than it was in reality, which says much more about him than it does about me (or does it?). So when I went to the small camera shop on Wednesday, I was sure to preface my request with “My husband takes a lot of pictures of trees” and I refrained from adding, “Wink, wink, nudge, nudge”.

Seriously, here is one of Ken’s photographs of a tree. He’s very talented.

Anyway, I came away from the camera store with a gift card, assured by the owner that Ken could buy whatever he liked, which suited me fine. But as I was leaving, I noticed another business in the plaza, a hair salon. It was called The Main Attraction Hair Studio. And all I could think is, ‘There’s a missed opportunity if ever I saw one’. Like, who was the genius who said, “I know that the word ‘Mane’ is another word for long, luxurious hair, but if we call it “The Mane Attraction”, nobody is going to get THAT”? It’s like having the last name Taylor and being a seamstress, but calling your business ‘Tailor-Made’. I mean, why would you NOT capitalize on the obvious?!

And while I was taking a break from writing so I could think of more examples, I asked Kate for help:

Me: What are some other fun plays on words that people could use for their businesses?
Kate: Um…Sofa King.
Me: I don’t get it…
Kate: Because their sofas are so f*cking comfortable.
Me: (laughs hysterically)

And I remember when I was a kid, being absolutely fascinated by the Dew Drop Inn, a motel in the cottage town we used to visit. I don’t think I would have been quite as impressed if the name had been the Do Drop Inn, although that’s kind of cute too. Of course, if I owned a motel, it would be called the Come Inn…and it’s no wonder that people think I’m talking about sex stuff all the time. At any rate, I started thinking of some other fun names for businesses and I designed a quiz just for you. You have to match the names with the businesses. And just to up the ante, all the names I made up kind of sound like porn shops, so you have to guess which one is actually a porn shop. Also, one of them is an real business name that I found online, so you have to figure that out too. Answers are below the picture of an ad I found that is, apparently, someone else’s idea of a quiz, only theirs costs much more than mine:

1) Let’s Get Fizz-ical
2) We’re Going To Pump You Up
3) One Man’s Junk
4) The Hole Shebang
5) Can You Dig It
6) He Shoots, He Scores
7) Quality Tools
8) We Suck
9) Big Ass Slabs
10) Pour Some Sugar On Me

a) Excavating Company
b) Sporting Goods
c) Donut Store
d) Confectioners
e) Chainsaw Milling and Timberwork – this is a real company, I sh*t you not
f) Tire Repair
g) Vacuum Repair Service
h) Adult Novelties i.e. porn
i) Soda Shop
j) Thrift Store

Answers: 1i, 2f, 3j, 4c, 5a, 6b, 7h, 8g, 9e, 10d

How’d you do? As for What? I don’t know. All the pictures are exactly the same and the description just says ‘Working condition’. I really think there was a missed opportunity there.