All that thin wood on the right represents three hours of dragging lumber from underneath the avocado trees to the nearby carport, cutting it to length on the table saw (I would say “cheap table saw,” but anything with a motor or engine is not cheap in Uruguay), loading in a wheelbarrow and stacking 20 meters away in front of the casita (small/guest house).

There’s nothing quite like a shop vac for cleaning up piles of sawdust without having to breath it. This morning I emptied it and marveled at the simplicity of this 10-year-old supermarket-points purchase, still going strong.

Then I wondered if I had a manual for the shop vac (I always save them, even if I never look at them). Then I thought, what if it was my job to write a manual for this thing? I quickly concluded I would get fired, for my instruction manual would consist of a single line.

If you need an instruction manual for a shop vac, you are probably a liberal arts professor and should not be trusted with it.