Working with Dad's Tools

a poem about the past and the future

Photo by Nina Mercado on Unsplash

When Tommy took his father’s tools,
he thought he knew his father's rules.
Hammers for nails, not for screws.
For each job, the right tool to use. 

Protect your hands, your ears, your face. 
Wind your cords. Sweep your space. 
Put things back when you're all done. 
And never ever touch Dad's old gun.

"I know all that," Tommy thought,
when he went to build a toy robot
and Dad was out of home that day
but he'd be back to judge the play.

It wasn't long into his work
that big sister came. Sue was a jerk. 
"That's not the way to work a screw."
"I think your robot could use some glue."

"Get lost," he snapped right back at her.
"It's not like you'd do any better."
"Oh yes, I could," says she, and then,
"But such a task 'sn't worth my time."

"I've lost an earring behind my boxspring
I need Dad's long magnet thing.
Do you know where that might be?"
But no answer she got from Tommy.

"Find it yourself, you nincompoop.
Maybe if Dad kept you in the loop,
you'd know where it was in his shop
and wouldn't have to search a lot."

Determined though she was to find it,
Tommy knew he'd accidentally dropped it
behind Dad's workbench just last week 
and had yet to Dad of this error speak.

So after an angry thorough search,
she turned on him ready to coerce. 
"Tell me where," she said, "you churl!"
"No way, Jose. Tools aren't for girls."

"They're as much for me as they are for you!"
"Then why didn't Dad tell you all the rules?"
"'Cause I'm not a dummy. I don't need to be told
not use a blow torch to try to make gold."

Tommy blushed with anger and shame.
That was two years ago and he wasn't to blame.
He'd heard transmutation turns lead to gold
so he'd torched his pencils in a tiny tin mold.

"If tools are for girls, then where is Mom's shop?"
Tommy then challenged to come out on top.
Big sister scoffed and rolled her blue eyes
then snatch up his robot, which was its demise.

The glue hadn't dried. The head fell right off.
Enraged, Tommy pushed Sue out of the shop
and threatened he'd make Sue pay for this day,
both now and henceforth, she'd have to stay away.

"I won't let you come into Dad's space
and you'll never use the tools in this place."
So saying, Tommy slammed shut the door 
and threw the lock to settle the score.

But Sue, she was wily, "I'm getting the key!" 
So before the door, Tommy shoved boxes three. 
Then just to make sure that'd be enough,
he used Daddy's hammer to nail the door shut.

Just three nails he put through the jam,
was that so bad? Could he be to blame?
He looked at his work and felt rather amiss
he wasn't so sure Dad's tools were for this.

But at the door, he heard struggling ensue
with exclamations of what Sue next would do. 
"I'm getting the clicker for the garage door."
Tommy looked frantically for the door's chord.

It was hardwired into the ceiling for good.
What could he do, but drag a ladder of wood
right under the thing and climb up with a mutter,
"I hope this doesn't damage Dad's wire cutters."

POP! BANG! And ZAP! Tommy fell on his back.
The shop lights went out and the room went all black
save for the light shining through a window
where Sue peered in and said, "You Dumbo!"

She pushed in the screen, climbed over the wall
looked round at the tools, and chose one of Dad's mauls,
then with it, she chased Tommy with clout.
He fled from his sister with a cry and a shout.

But just before through the window he leapt,
he spotted Dad's gun box on the shelf to the left.
He snatched it as through the air he flew
landing in a heap in the yard on dog poo.

Behind him, he heard Sue banging a board
across the shop window to prevent his tool hoard.
"That's not the way Dad said to use tools!"
he shouted to her about the tool rules.

He'd felt uneasy when he'd done the same,
but now that she did it, that shame had a name.
Dad's tools were not meant to be used in this way
to bar one another from the tools for the day.

But as Tommy stormed, into the driveway came
the car of his Dad—God, by name.
He'd been away from home that day
but he was back to judge the play.

And there stood Tommy with Dad's gun in his hands,
and Sue in the shop with the entrances blocked.
The power had blown, some circuits shot,
and Dad's tools were used as they ought not.

When Tommy took his father’s tools,
he thought he knew his father's rules.
Hammers for nails, not for screws.
For each job, the right tool to use. 

But Tommy, and now I must include Sue,
used the tools 'gainst each other to bar and exclude
from the shop one another in a fight for rule,
when Dad meant them to build up with his tools.