Today I went to Sears. I bought a new power tool. It's an edge trimmer, at least that's what I'm calling it. I have one that's 20 years old and the string always gets jammed up in  it. After I mow the lawn, I leave the edges until they are shin high because I dread the hand clipping.

Well, last weekend, I went to the neighborhood store and there was a guy out there puttering around in his front yard. His grass was neatly clipped and the edges were the same height as the rest of the lawn, new fence, no long strands of grass growing along the fence posts, unlike at my yard. I was very impressed by this. "Nice fence," I said. "Thanks," he replied. "We just got it."

"I really like the detail on it with the knobs on the top," I said. "And your grass is so nice and trimmed. How did you do that? On my fence I can't get close enough with the lawn mower and I have to hand trim under the fence."

Leave it to a guy to have the answer. "Oh," he said, "no problem, fifty bucks at Sears and you get one of those trimmers, it comes right up to the fencepost."

"Does it have the string?" I asked. "I always get all tangled up with that string. But then my trimmer is 20 years old and it probably cost $12.99 when it was new."

"Oh," he said, "no, they're really great now, it clips right up to the edges no problem and the string is in a case so it's easy to work with."

"Thanks!" I said. "No problem," he said.

Geez, leave it to a guy to know just the right power tool.

He was right, it works great. I put the thing together in no time and it trimmed right up to the edges. Ten minutes, job done, $29.99.

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