Metabo Grinder ... Higher Power?

Once, after I had finished confessing an episode of drunkenness to a priest, he gave me some background on AA. (Wait ... is the person Confessing bound by an oath of secrecy, or only the priest?) Anyhow, he mentioned that in Step 2 of the 12 steps you admit the existence of a higher power. Of course, the priest and I had already admitted the existence of this Higher Power, in the Triune God. But, he mentioned one case in which the only "higher power" that one of the "friends of Bill W" could think of was the air-conditioner in his full-size Buick. Apparently, this man lived in some intemperate region, such as Arizona, and his Buick's air-conditioner was the one thing in his earthly existence which had never let him down. As the priest's story went, the man eventually graduated from belief in his car's air-conditioner to full-fledged belief in God.

I was thinking, the other day as I worked on Eliot's car: If I were an atheist, what would my higher power be? I decided that it would be my Metabo grinder:


I have put this grinder through all sorts of hell for the past 10 years, and it has never missed a beat. Last weekend, I was using it to cut and grind on the shock towers of Eliot's Meteor, and I had it running almost continuously for several hours.



In fact, when it started to get hot ... I stopped and gave it a rest ... not because I thought it might not be up to the task ... but, because I had pity on an old and faithful friend!