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Transmogrify is defined as changing form, often with unusual or ghastly, gruesome results……
A cat’s paw simply would not turn into a chalk line. Your hundred buck Record 07 will, however, turn, mysteriously while in your site box, into a no-name, made in Taiwan, Home Depot knockoff of a cheap stanley.
Surely couldn’t have anything to do with the miserable low-life thieving bastards that work as lowly construction hacks nowadays, could it? 🙂
alad
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Transmogrify is defined as changing form, often with unusual or ghastly, gruesome results......
A cat's paw simply would not turn into a chalk line. Your hundred buck Record 07 will, however, turn, mysteriously while in your site box, into a no-name, made in Taiwan, Home Depot knockoff of a cheap stanley.
Surely couldn't have anything to do with the miserable low-life thieving bastards that work as lowly construction hacks nowadays, could it? :)
alad
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Beautiful post alad -
I always thought that 'transmogrify' was made up for Calvin and Hobbs, but in retrospect, your definition and application to the trades is perfect!
I find it interesting that when tools transmogrify, if there is any identifying marks as to the owner, they are not on the tool after the transmogrification process - and in the rare event that a tool un-transmogrifies at some future date in the company of said low-life */#$!, the identifying marks do not reappear with the original tool. This strange occurance was the source of a thrown circular-saw and the firing of two workers at a job site in my area...
*Actually, I learned the word from Calvin and Hobbs. I thought it was made up, too, until I looked it up. I first noticed the phenomenon when I was working by myself or only with a one employee. So theft was not a logical explaination. Besides, thieves are not like pack rats. The former makes off with your stuff, the later makes off with your stuff and leaves something in return. I guess this goes to show that thieves are lower than rats.
*On the oh so rare occasion that I find a tool, why does it always say "Craftsman" or some kind of KMart brand? I never lose anything as cheap as the junk I find, where does my stuff go?
*The most stunning instance of tool transmogrification I've personally experienced happened about three years ago. I bought a very nice, and quite expensive, pearl brooch for my wife about 3 weeks before her birthday, and hid it in the hall closet. Admittedly, that closet is very dark and somewhat fetid.Anyway, when I took the brooch out to wrap it for her, it had turned into a Lie-Nielsen #62 low angle jack.Most amazing thing I've ever had to explain in my life.JS
*Really, I leave the job for a while and my guys manage to transmogrify a perfectly good tool into a piece of broken junk. Then I have to transmogrify my money into a replacement tool to get the job done so's I can transmogrify a bill into an insurance payment, or better yet, an IRS quarterly donation. Am I transmogrification impaired, or what? I need Calvin's box!!!
*Estwing prybars... vaporize. More than once, my pair of Estwing prybars have vaporized on a jobsite... Only once has a "China" wonder-bar copyappeared in their place. I left it there, hoping to use it as a marker for my Estwings... just in case they went "walkabout" for a while.
*Ah, Joe, a story on multiple levels! When I first read it, I said: "What a wonderful, if somewhat snoopy woman." After laughing for a while, it occured to me that the wife was not the transmorgrifier (there, now it's a verb). You selfish person, you!But my first assumption was probably right, right?
*Remember Joe Friday? Just the facts Mam, gotta get the facts.I'm sure there are actual cases of transmogrification as in the brooch into a neat sold bronze hand tool. And beautiful, well made tools do get up and walk - usually hand in hand with somebody.But having had many employees - most all honest, at least not thieves - and having researched this phenomenon with other various employers as well as parents of small children, the most common and plausible explanation is: the elves did it. Where is that saw that left the shop this morning? What saw, there were never 6 saws on the shelf, never more than five. Wasn't me, I didn't see it. Not me either. What about yoy. No, not me. Are you sure there were ever even 5? Wheres your bicycle? What bicycle? The one you've been riding for two years. I don't know. Well do you think that was it in the driveway that your mother just backed over with the Chevy Suburban? Oh no! How did id get there? Must have been the elves again.
*Rats make better pets, they can be housebroken.
*Now THIS kind of discussion we can use more of. Lots more.
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Some time ago I noticed that tool that I bought would often be no where to be found, but I would have an abundance of other tools. For example, I was always buying cats paws (I bought 4 of them at one time once) but I never had more than one of them anywhere. I had only bought one chalk line in my life, but I must have had half a dozen. Utility knives appeared and other things disappeared. This lead me to realize that there must be some kind of phenomenon that caused tool to transmogrify into other tools.
Has anyone else noticed this?