Devilishly good leaf rake

My older brother used to live in Phoenix, and whenever I would  call to enter one of my seasonal complaints about the snow that required shoveling, the grass that always seemed to need cutting or the leaves that needed raking, he would suggest that I move to his city, and then I would shut up.  Some people would suggest that when I die I will end up in a place like Phoenix anyway, so why push it. My hell will be  run by the guy with the forked tail, but instead of a pitchfork, he’ll have in his hand a rake with lots of broken tines, which he’ll hand to me and point to a giant pile of leaves, and  I’ll spend eternity raking them. And if the red man is feeling particularly devilish he’ll make is so that the leaves are either on fire or frozen to the ground.

For this year’s rake-a-thon, I treated myself to a new tool made by Fiskars—the company known for excellent scissors and crappy pruners (don’t get me started).  The curve of the tines in the Fiskars rake don’t get clogged with leaves for some reason. I’m not sure why, but they don’t. I sort of pooh-poohed the teardrop shaped handle, thinking it was just more ergonomic gimcrackery  but after a few hours raking (and not swearing much until I reached down to pick up some leaves and grabbed onto a recently dead vole left by one of the damn cats) my hand wasn’t sore and didn’t ache. It’s a great rake. If you go out and buy one this morning, you’ll be thanking me by the afternoon.