This piece will be my sickening and debilitating admission to being an idiot of the P.T. Barnum description.

We are talking here about an online product touted as the world’s fastest chain saw sharpener. This little booger would sharpen a running saw chain in “three seconds.”

Circus magnate Barnum was the biggest con artist of his time, and I know he must have had my ilk in mind when he said, “There is a sucker born every day and two born to take him.”

I have been screwed, blued, and tattooed by a cheap internet scam that should warm the heart cockles of my detractors. The chain saw thing does not even have a manufacturer’s name with it. Three second indeed.

If you don’t dig Sam Kindrick, then read on. You will love my account of the “cheap, yellow, plastic piece of shit” that I purchased online for the outrageous price of $33.98, and my humiliating agony after the contraption arrived.

And those ugly words did not originally emanate from my lips. When I alerted my 5-foot wife Sharon of my order, showing her an online picture of the handy, dandy little saw chain sharpener, she diverted from her usual aversion to profanity and said with an ugly little laugh:

“It’s a cheap, yellow, plastic piece of shit. I know that yellow plastic. It’s the same as a boob squeezer I saw when I was little. The yellow thing was supposed to squeeze in the boobs, making them look larger than they were. It was a scam.”

She was right, of course. My chain sharpener arrived in basic black and baby shit yellow plastic, and it didn’t work the way I had envisioned. Maybe this all reverts back to my seemingly sick fixation with chain saws. After using the contraptions over most of my adult lifetime, I almost cut off my left foot with a small Echo brand saw in July of last year. The cut left tendons exposed and took a half a year to heal.

I am still using this saw and another chain saw, but in my own defense let me say that I am now taking precautions. After the bloody accident, which happened with me wearing shorts and tennis shoes, I am back working in my customary Wrangler jeans and a pair of steel-toed work boots my wife found in a Boerne thrift store. Steel toes mind you.

Now about the “cheap yellow plastic piece of shit.” It attaches to the chain bar of the saw, complete with a little strip of sharpening stone which touches the saw teeth while the machine is
running. And this is all wrong. Anyone who can’t quickly see the fallacy of this deal probably still believes that Bruce Jenner does not have a fine set of balls swinging in the breeze.

After buying the gadget through Paypal from an online outfit called Cootype, other companies with the same doohickey started flashing across my computer screen. It screamed scam, scam, scam. Here’s Little Trick Dick, let’s go get him.

An Amazon review of my worthless piece of yellow plastic shit confirmed what I had quickly observed. “Only use it on blades you would otherwise throw away. It messes up the pitch, the rake angle, and just about every other cutting parameter designed into the blade. It will work for a quick and easy way to get a job done, but the edge won’t last as long or cut as well as a properly sharpened blade, and it will drastically reduce blade life.”

Before reading this information, I had already sent the following to Cootype: “As you know, the gadget is no way to sharpen a saw chain. I should have inspected the pictures more closely. A chain tooth must be sharpened from the inside out with a file, Dremel stone, or a jig. Your product only flattens part of the chain tooth’s exterior, making for a temporary cut at the most. And continued use of your product would soon ruin the saw chain. I want my $33.98 returned. Would you please take it off my VISA card.”

The response was quick. It read: “I am sorry we cannot refund you when the product has been used.” It was signed “Eve.”

Dr. Bob Smith, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonyous, famously said that no one ever held him down on a street sidewalk and poured scotch down his throat; and by the same token, I realize that one must assume the position before an anal hosing can take place. If you bend over and grab your ankles, anything can happen.

What a shame. A $33.98 lesson and all over a cheap yellow plastic piece of shit that will ruin a saw chain faster than it could ever sharpen one.

I feel like I am still holding my ankles.