Have you ever been driving and you start to pass a store and suddenly a thought flashes through your mind: “Oh! Store X! I really need to go there and buy a Y!”, and then swerve your car, squealing brakes and angering traffic as you find a place to park, run in and immediately buy the object you so desperately need to have?
Only the large number of states that separate us make me not worry overmuch that you now own a sledge hammer.
The coolest thing is the way that people treat you when you’re walking purposefully while carrying a sledgehammer. Even if you’re just walking from the sledgehammer area of a hardware store to the cash register.
Well, you already had the speak softly part down. I look at it as being an inevitability.
Actually, that’s “walk softly”.
Nathan Miller, “Theodore Roosevelt, A Life”, page 337:
“Looking back upon his handling of the incident, Roosevelt thought he ‘never saw a bluff carried more resolutely through to the final limit.’ And writing to a friend a few days later, he observed: ‘I have always been fond of the West African proverb: “Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.” ‘ ”
I think the “walk softly” thing is a common misremembrance of the quote. In either case, woohoo, sledge hammer! =)
Mmmmmmmm hammer!!! Lucky you!
Will you name it after me?
at first glance, i thought the brand name on the sledgehammer read “Luddite”. i’m almost sad it didn’t.