The drill
The kind of thing you want over with quick
Pawn shop windows are full of stories about tough decisions and evidence of failed plans. But it is the love we have for each other that turns one person’s bad luck into a void of unthinkable sadness for another person.
And so it was that, standing in front of this window in a Scottish coastal town, I cried, because an orange, paint splatted drill was lying on display.
I don’t mind DIY, but I find drilling a bit intimidating. Things can go bad in a split second. Suddenly you have a big hole where you just need a small one. So, the first time I needed to fix a coat rack on the wall of my little place, I asked my father for help. That is as it should be.
My father didn’t much like drilling either, but he was used to getting through unpleasant tasks without consideration for his own emotions. He was born in the war and fled his home town age four. This is not a sob story about territories changing ownership. A nation forever grateful to the allies for this liberation will not moan about a little bit of migration.
My father never owned property until he retired and a drill in hand in rented accommodation amounts to making holes in walls you do not own. It’s the kind of thing you want over with quick.
We got the coat rack up, he packed his drill away, a little relieved maybe. Nothing ever really phased him that much, no wonder.
My father left many tools, when he passed away in 2023. He had other possessions too, but he had a lot of tools. That is also as it should be.
When we are lucky and don’t need to migrate, we have possessions and we cherish them. They become a part of who we are. Other people pick them up later and think of us.
The drill in the shop window was orange and grey, the kind of colour combination that goes back at least 50 years. And I can almost picture the owner of this drill, an old man.
I hoped that somebody had broken into the old man’s garage and stolen his tools and then decided to take them to this pawn shop. The other scenario was the one that made me cry:
I imagined an old man running out of money looking around his house, then looking around his shed to see what valuables he has, then picking up his drill and taking it to the pawn shop. He was telling himself a story that he was going to get it back. Even if he didn’t. Once things were looking up, he’d just get himself a new one.
I don’t think a tool like that one is replaceable. He also knew that and he hesitated over this step, the last resort. But things hadn’t gone to plan, so he had no choice.
A drill that you’ve had for 50 years has stories to tell of things you have built and pictures you have attached to walls. Maybe this old man had helped his children move into their own houses, as a dad would, like mine.
I wonder what the old man would have got for his drill in the pawn shop. I don’t think it would have been a lot. I don’t think it would have fed him for a whole week, if he had spent it on food alone. I wished some protection upon this man who was giving away this treasured possession for one week’s worth of food. A year has 52 weeks, how this is going to work for him?
And, of course, the man I was really wishing protection upon was my father. Because I knew, while I was standing outside that pawn shop window, that he was going to lose his drill along with his life and we were going to lose him.