Well, maybe even Lucy can't help here, the situation defies logic. Well, to me anyway.
It
all started when my handy-dandy, ever trusty electric drill needed to
have its battery charged. The DeWalt portable drill I have been using
for the last several years came with two batteries and a charger, so,
it has never been a problem in the past. I always keep the unused
battery charged and ready to pop in the drill whenever the one in the
drill runs down. A minute or so after the one in the drill goes flat,
and I'm usually up and running. I swap them out all the time so they
both get used interchangeably. The drill kit with the batteries came
in a very nice hard carrying case with neat little chrome latches,
really cool!
I
bought the drill kit at Home Depot for $99.00 during a special
promotion, and considered myself a shrewd buyer as the price soon
went up to $129.00 for the kit. I haven't paid much attention lately,
but I've seen the popular kit around when I've been in the store. I
assumed the price would eventually increase until a newer model came
out or the drill was discontinued.
As
I was taking down hurricane shutters recently, a fairly heavy-use
project, the battery in the drill ran out. I use the drill with
an adapter as a power wrench, the only sensible way to
remove wingnuts and bolts without spending an extra couple of hours.
However, the replacement battery in the charger was unexpectedly
dead, so the project came to a manual, grinding halt.
I
decided to price a new one while I recharged the one remaining
battery. Wow! Talk about sticker shock. The lowest price I
could find on-line was $54 and that was for a nondescript, oddly
labeled battery that vaguely resembled the original DeWalt unit. The
cheapest DeWalt unit was $79 and that was without on-line shipping
costs. So, I headed off to Home Depot to see what I could find.
The
current replacement 18 volt battery, now labeled with an X to show
it's better than the original, is located conveniently in the very
first tool bin, neatly packaged in theft-proof plastic. If you think
child-proof caps on medicine bottles are stinkers, try industrial
level theft protection on tools. At any rate, I balked at its $89
price tag. Well, maybe I don't need the replacement battery as badly
as I thought. As I turn to leave, I happen to glance around the
shelves and see the original drill kit I bought several years ago,
now on sale for $84.99. It's the last one left. Let's see, how long
is a microsecond?
I
now have my backup battery, plus another new spare battery, another
charger, and a brand new drill. And of course another neat little
carrying case with chrome latches. And I saved five bucks to boot.
See, even Lucy can't explain this one.
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