I swear I have always put the tools away when I finish a job. My sister Vicky, two years my senior, definitely remembers my not putting away a hammer. 

We were raised in a garage. A full half of our home was dedicated to three large garage doors that served my parent’s tractor and trailer rental business. We kids could use any tool in the garage except the power tools, but there was one rule: we had to put the tools back where they belonged.

On the other end of the house from the shop we had a long patch of cement, actually covering two big septic tanks as well as some extra ground. Over this cement were clotheslines. From the end of the clotheslines, around the house and to the last of the garage doors, was more than half a city block. 

It seems I had some important project to hammer out on the far end of the clotheslines. When I was through I dropped the hammer on the ground and went about my business. By the time my dad noticed the hammer was missing and figured out where it was and why it was there it was late in the evening, an inch of show had fallen, and I was getting ready for bed. Or perhaps Dad waited, just for the dramatic effect.

Whether bad timing or timed for effect, I found myself being pulled out of a nice warm shower, dripping wet, and planted naked out the back door of the house, my feet in snow. I was told the garage door was open and I could get back in when the hammer was where it belonged.

Vicky assures me I was the most pissed off wet little naked boy, running and screaming in the snow, that you have ever seen.