March 2009

“WHY DO YOU EVEN NEED THAT?”

“Why do you even need that?” she asked most sincerely with a serious and puzzled look in her face.

That was last fall, and my friend was referring to my Leatherman Super Tool 200. She probably figured that, since we were working staff jobs inside the city limits of a large municipality, there was no need to be carrying things like that, especially in an office environment. After all, multi-tools were meant for field use, right?

I believe a person owes it to himself or herself to have a multi-tool of some type and brand. The applications of these fine, practical tools are innumerable no matter where you're at. And for me, my multi-tool of choice is Leatherman.

Although I am in a staff job far away from the field, I’ve put my Super Tool 200 to use in handling various tasks around the office. The outstanding, long reach of the Phillips screwdriver easily accessed some screws I needed to remove in order to take off a drawer and make my desk arrangement more ergonomically correct. There was one day last year where I had to use the needle nose pliers to extract a letter opener, which had been inserted by an officemate into the faulty lock mechanism of the front door to keep it unlocked. Well, it was closing time and we couldn't secure that door until the letter opener was taken out, and I had the tool to do it with. And, I've repeatedly extended those fantastic needle nose pliers into the opening of our paper shredders to SAFELY remove gnarled paper jamming the cutter blades.

The other day I was discussing a project with a colleague when my friend came walking into the office with her glasses in hand. She asked if either of us had a screwdriver to tighten the hinge screws of her glasses with. I looked at her glasses, saw that they had those tiny, single-slotted screws, pulled my Leatherman Super Tool 200 from its sheath, and searched through the tools until I found the small screwdriver with the fine head. I swung it out and locked it into position with an authoritative “CLICK!” It was the perfect match for the task at hand. Within a few minutes I had those screws nice and snug, and my friend left the office a very happy camper!

Hmmm… now what was that question she asked last fall? :)

Don’t leave home without your Leatherman!

William R.
North Bethesda, MD