The Little World

You’ll know this one. You go to the tool section of the hobby shop, possibly with a definite purpose. You have need of a tool and possess sufficient spare cash to be able to afford it. You rush to the place before the family demand money with menaces ( school shoes, food, medical attention…).

As you comb the racks and shelves for the item you need, you come across a well packaged tool that you do not recognise. Indeed you find a small section devoted to them, with examples from several makers. You can get a cheap one, an expensive one, and one in a set with a half-dozen other things. All to the good…except you have no idea wjhat it is and even less of what it might be used for.

The worst part of this puzzle is it seems so well finished and sexy looking. You lust after it without knowing what to do with it. It’s exactly like being an adolescent boy in a room full of teenage girls. They all know the secret and you don’t.

Well, take heart. The truth of the thing is that no-one – from the wholesaler to the retailer to the customer – knows any more than you do. The first-named got it as a consignment with the things they really ordered, the second was cozened into taking it by a sweetheart deal, and the broad range of other modellers are just as puzzled as you are.

But watch – the tool will sell. Other people have the same lusts as you, and some of them have more money. The things will fly off the shelf. Whether they fly anytime afterwards is debatable, but as long as the bulk of the stock goes before Christmas, the shop is happy.

The only time they make a mistake is when the overestimate the number of times that people will buy a pig in a poke and are stuck with a great deal of bagged bacon. Tool Time Sale!