Hammer in the Grass

They searched low through the high grass, they searched in the yellow grass, and when it moved it could not stay still. It looked like water. The grass was high, they parted the grass, look. Is it there in the grass?

No, only a snake, I’ve found a snake, called the Sphinx.

Ask the snake.

Have you seen a hammer in the grass?

I might have done, said the snake, in my low snakelike travels, If I had, why should I tell you?

It might help, so, have you seen a hammer?

Any hammer on any day?

No, a particular hammer in the recent past,

Within say a month?

A week is better, a day or two would be really interesting, but best of all, in the last few hours. Minutes would be beyond our wildest.

Anyway no, said the snake, or maybe, what kind of hammer? A claw hammer or lump hammer? And in any case, what does it do? Couldn’t you use the scissors of success or the toothpick of truth?

No, no, it’s a stone carvers hammer that we seek, sort of round metal at the top with a wooden handle. We might look for those other things next week.

I don’t think I’d recognise one of those, even if I had seen one. Now a claw hammer I am familiar with. Probably the most common hammer these days, ubiquitous even. I think that is what most people think of when you say ‘hammer’. The claw is really useful for pulling nails and dismantling things like pallets etc. You can get really good leverage with a claw hammer, whereas a lump hammer is really just an instrument of destruction. Generally used with a cole chisel or is it a cold chisel, I’ve never been quite clear. I just googled it, it’s a cold chisel. Anyway, with a lump hammer and a cold chisel you can destroy nearly anything, although some things will take longer than others. I think that Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir, is really just a large ornate lump hammer. Perhaps he needs to chip or break something.

Pin hammer, yes, ball peen hammer, yes, sledgehammer, now we’re talking, mallet, leather hammer, rock hammer.

I’ve got a rock hammer, continued the snake.

What does a snake use a rock hammer for? Asked Sheba

It just hangs on a wall. I was given it, snakes don’t use hammers, wish I could really. Wow, the things I’d hit if I could, said the snake.

Like what?

A piggy bank to get out the money, a gong to signal dinnertime, the nail on the head. I would find many things to hit. Partly depends on what sort of hammer I could lay my scales on.

What time of day would you hammer?

I would hammer in the morning.

Oh, and whereabouts?

All over this land.

Oh, but no hammer of any kind in this vicinity now or in the recent past?

No.

Moving on, The Sphinx, Sheba and the woman with the goat and short end of a stick, entered a jungle in search of the Hammer of Solutions.