{"id":63195,"date":"2023-03-29T17:36:33","date_gmt":"2023-03-29T21:36:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=63195"},"modified":"2023-03-29T17:36:33","modified_gmt":"2023-03-29T21:36:33","slug":"tamping-alone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2023\/03\/29\/tamping-alone\/","title":{"rendered":"Tamping alone"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

The Big Box has front-loaded our spring inventory. It\u2019s all here, but spring itself isn\u2019t, weather-wise, not quite yet. So our store is swollen-to-bursting with everything we need for our busiest time of year, with overflowing shelves and ambitiously tall pallets of overstock stacked in every crevice from here to the roof. We\u2019re just waiting for the first warm, sunny Saturday. [Checks 10-day forecast. Sighs<\/em>.]<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not so bad when it comes to the grass seed and glyphosate and all the other stuff in boxes, which tend to be stackable and pallet-ize-able and relatively easy to deal with. It\u2019s more of a challenge for things like long-handled garden tools \u2014 all that stuff Arlo referred to as \u201crakes and shovels and implements of destruction<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
Col. Mustard, in the truck, with the tamper.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

My least favorite of those to deal with are the tampers. They\u2019re awkwardly shaped and weighted in a way that defies convenient or safe storage. And they show up piled loose on trucks in a way that has me convinced the folks who loaded those trucks are trying to kill my crew. (Rule No. 1 for the unload crew: The Truck Is Trying to Kill You. Don\u2019t Let It.)<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve never used a tamper, it\u2019s basically a long handle with a flat, heavy steel square attached to one end. Tampers are for tamping<\/em> \u2014 for flattening and leveling and compressing piles of dirt or sand or gravel.<\/p>\n

You might need one if you\u2019re on the grounds crew for a baseball stadium or, maybe, if you\u2019re a rec-league or church-softball coach who plays at a lot of dubious fields. Other than that, it\u2019s a very project-specific tool. A tamper is not like a rake or a shovel \u2014 something you\u2019ll need to own if you\u2019ve got a yard or a garden to take care of. You only need it if you\u2019re doing a specific sort of project like installing a new patio or pavestone pathway.<\/p>\n

But \u2014 and this is my point here \u2014 it\u2019s not a tool you\u2019re going to need to use again<\/em> after you\u2019ve finished that project. At that point you\u2019re just going to need to store it somewhere, more or less forever, someplace that\u2019s out-of-the-way enough that you don\u2019t end up tripping over it every time you need to grab your rake or your shovel or some other yard tool that you\u2019ll actually need and use.<\/p>\n

So, basically, apart from professional landscapers, there are only two types of customers who buy tampers: 1) Homeowners who need one for a few days while they\u2019re doing a patio project, and 2) Homeowners who need one for a few days a few years later while they\u2019re repairing that patio project, but who can\u2019t remember where they put the thing after finishing that initial project a few years ago.<\/p>\n

Put another way, I\u2019m stuck with the dilemma of trying to figure out some way to store all of these tampers until we get a whole bunch of customers to buy them, each thereby bringing home their own, personal dilemma of trying to figure out some way to store their own, personal tamper.<\/p>\n

A tamper, in other words, is absolutely the kind of tool you\u2019re far better off borrowing<\/em> than buying. That\u2019s better for you and it\u2019s less wasteful of money and resources. Heck, it\u2019s even better for the friend or neighbor you\u2019re borrowing the thing from because now they\u2019ll get to enjoy the thought that \u201cAt least somebody<\/em> is using the thing for something other than just taking up space in the back of the shed.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also better for democracy and for America as a whole. Democracy, after all, is contingent on basic reserves of mutuality, trust, and neighborliness \u2014 on what some scholars refer to as \u201csocial<\/em> capital.\u201d* The title of this post is a play on Robert D. Putnam\u2019s much-discussed 1995 essay and later book \u201cBowling Alone<\/a>,\u201d which pondered the decline of bowling leagues as an example of \u201cAmerica\u2019s declining social capital.\u201d (Putnam published a revised and updated edition of his book in 2020<\/a> with the now-less-depressing subtitle \u201cThe Collapse and Revival of American Community.\u201d)<\/p>\n

The Putnam reference there isn\u2019t a joke. The very same \u201cdeclining social capital\u201d he sees in lonely bowlers is also reflected in lonely tampers \u2014 the people who purchase, own, and store every tool they ever need, even if they only need it for one thing, rather than engaging in the neighborly economy of lending and borrowing.<\/p>\n

Capitalism cheerfully strip-mines social capital for profit, and so over at the Big Box I\u2019m happy to sell you not just a tamper of your very own but then, soon after, I\u2019ll also happily sell you a new, larger shed to help store all of the tools I\u2019ve helped you to acquire rather than to borrow or lend as needed. (And you know what you\u2019re gonna need for that shed? A big, flat, level space. Big enough and level enough, probably, that you may need to buy a second<\/em> tamper.)<\/p>\n

The last time I wrote about social capital and sharing yard tools \u2014 see \u201cLawnmowers and $40 nachos<\/a>\u201d \u2014 was just before I started working at the Big Box. Since then I\u2019ve sold a lot<\/em> of lawnmowers, especially this time of year.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019ve also not<\/em> sold a lot of lawnmowers, especially this time of year, because March and April are when a lot of folks fill their mowers from the gas cans that have been sitting in their garage since last summer and then think they need a new lawnmower because their old one won\u2019t start. We send them home with a $10 can of Sea Foam<\/a> instead of a $400 lawnmower.<\/p>\n

I like to think that, in the long run, that\u2019s good business \u2014 that saving our customers some money and helping them take better care of their stuff makes them trust us enough to keep coming back.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s also why I don\u2019t start by pushing our truck rental service but instead suggest that customers first call \u201cyour friend with a pickup truck.\u201d It\u2019s a disheartening validation of Putnam\u2019s thesis that so many of our customers turn out not to have<\/em> a friend with a pickup truck. \u201cAre you sure?\u201d I ask, reciting the TV-spot boilerplate about how the F-150 has been America\u2019s best-selling vehicle for the past 41 years. But somehow they don\u2019t know \u2014 or don\u2019t know they know \u2014 anyone<\/em> with a pickup truck they could borrow. These folks all have sofas and boxsprings and bookshelves back at home, but I have no idea how they got them there. I guess they rent a lot of trucks and truck-drivers and moving guys. A lack of social capital can be expensive.<\/p>\n

I try not to use phrases like \u201cAmerica\u2019s declining social capital\u201d when talking to customers who are buying things like tampers, but I do<\/em> ask whether they might just want to\u00a0 borrow one from a neighbor or from their brother-in-law or somebody. That\u2019s usually a better solution for them, for their budget, for neighborliness and social capital, for America, and for democracy in general.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, it does nothing to help with my where-the-heck-am-I-supposed-to-store-all-this-tamper-overstock?<\/em> dilemma. But that\u2019s my problem, not theirs.<\/p>\n

\n

* \u201cSocial capital\u201d is an awkward phrase for what I\u2019d rather just call neighborliness. It\u2019s a weirdly defensive term \u2014 \u201csocial capital<\/em>\u201d \u2014 that seems designed to appeal to people who\u2019d refuse to acknowledge its existence or importance if it weren\u2019t described in terms that make it sound like something that can be easily quantified and, therefore, exchanged<\/em>. Alas, that defensiveness might be prudent because, after all, this is MAGAmerica \u2014 a place where the basic neighborliness of lending and borrowing lawn tools may be denounced as suspiciously socialist<\/em>.<\/p>\n

P.S.<\/strong> I vaguely remember writing a Prism<\/em> item at some point back in the \u201990s about some church that ran a kind of \u201clending library\u201d for lawn tools and hand tools and power drills and such. It was basically a shed full of tools, a clipboard with a sign-out-sheet, and the honor system. Cool idea and one that could be replicated elsewhere.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you buy a bunch of tampers you’ll be able to create a nice level spot for the new shed you’ll need to store all of your tampers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":63204,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-class-warfare"],"yoast_head":"\nTamping alone<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If you buy a bunch of tampers you'll be able to create a nice level spot for the new shed you'll need to store all of your tampers.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2023\/03\/29\/tamping-alone\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tamping alone\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you buy a bunch of tampers you'll be able to create a nice level spot for the new shed you'll need to store all of your tampers.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2023\/03\/29\/tamping-alone\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"slacktivist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-03-29T21:36:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/52\/2023\/03\/TamperFeat.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"250\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"214\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2023\/03\/29\/tamping-alone\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2023\/03\/29\/tamping-alone\/\",\"name\":\"Tamping alone\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2023-03-29T21:36:33+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-03-29T21:36:33+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47\"},\"description\":\"If you buy a bunch of tampers you'll be able to create a nice level spot for the new shed you'll need to store all of your tampers.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2023\/03\/29\/tamping-alone\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2023\/03\/29\/tamping-alone\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2023\/03\/29\/tamping-alone\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Tamping alone\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\",\"name\":\"slacktivist\",\"description\":\""Test everything; 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Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. 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