I am a home inspector, i crawl in attics, and under houses as part of my daily routine ... for over 23 years now (over 13,000 inspections!) it's been an honor to help families safely settle in their new homes ... i have the BEST job in the world !!!
so ... when I'm crawling around under houses, it's easy for things to fall out of your pocket and lose them forever. I've trained myself to empty my pockets of EVERYTHING before i go under a house, except my lucky silver dollar which is always in the 5th pocket of my Levi 501's
Well, one day I forgot to unload my trusty swiss army knife, and it got away from me, here's what it looked like
it was a great knife, and I was pretty bummed when I discovered it was "missing". But I wasn't going to go back and re-trace my steps trying to find it, because it was late in the evening, and it could have been anywhere at three different properties I had inspected in cities nearly an hour away ;(
"Excuse me, yes ma'am I know its 10 o'clock at night, but would you mind if i crawl under your house and look for my knife?" ... it just didn't sound right to me, what you think ?
The loss did give me the opportunity though to go get a NEW knife, and I picked the love of my life in pocket tools when i bought a Leatherman Charge ... the thing is amazing, and I have been real good at keeping it safe whenever I am crawling under houses, and in attic crawlspaces.
That alone would have been the way this story ended, except for a certain Mr. Ray Carrier of Take Care Termite who I happened to see today doing a home inspection. I went to open the access cover to get into the sub-area crawlspace, and discovered newly installed carpet had been stapled to the access cover preventing it from being fully removed.
so what does Ray do ??? he says "let me get out my trusty knife and trim the carpet real quick" ... I'm thinking this is a good deal, because the cover was a real bear to pry open, and I didn't want to let it back down to get out my knife and cut the carpet.
Ray reaches into his tool pouch, and he pulls out his swiss army knife ... MY swiss army knife !!!
I said "where'd you get that knife, that's mine!!!"
Ray looks at me, he obviously is wondering what I mean, but he also signals there is "something" to my story by the look on his face, saying "I found it underneath a home in Livermore doing an inspection a few months ago"
I explain to him details about the knife that prove it is my old knife, and we sit there wondering what the heck just happened ... he goes to hand it back to me, and I say "no, I didn't mean for you to give it back to me, I just meant its AMAZING that someone found my knife, and its someone I've known for over 20 years, let alone in this line of work"
here's Ray with his new knife
we had lunch after, and the knife never came up, just like old friends we talked about lots of things relating to home inspections, termite inspections, and the real estate industry ... i won't bore you with the details, because in all honesty, all lunch long all I could think about was ONE thing ... MY KNIFE :0)
and the moral to this story is follow behind me, because if the past is any prediction of the future ... one day you're going to find a beautiful Leatherman Charge ... MY leatherman charge !!!
