This is The Mouthpiece, a guest contribution by Martin Owens. If you would like to submit a contribution please contact Bill Beatty for submission details. Thank you.

“The manner of giving is worth more than the gift.”

― Pierre Corneille

It’s a holiday thing. Most parents have been here: you get the kids the latest, shiniest,whiz-bang gotta-have gadget in the store, maybe a new design of bicycle. And you get it home Christmas Eve, and all of a sudden it dawns on you that you’re gonna have to assemble this thing. It’s way more complicated than anything you had as a child. And you don’t have the necessary tools, like 52-millimeter offset hex wrenches, and anyway the assembly instructions read like they were translated from Chinese (they probably were).