January 5 - January 11, 1995

Hey, Hey, a hug and a whirl

I love, I love, I love my little calendar girl Everyday, everyday of the year!

CALENDAR GIRL. I'm sooo sorry to report the death of the Snap-on Tools pin-up calendar. It's official--no more chickies with drills or screwdrivers aimed carelessly toward the socket, or whatever. It will be cars only from now on.

Who's let this oily bit of Americana slip away? Times have changed, says Wisconsin-based Snap-on Tools. So soon? More than half of new car purchasers are women, they note, and they have to get their oil changed somewhere. Regularly too, is what I hear. Snappy spokesguy David Heide insists they're not trying to be p.c. (post cheesy), it's just that they want to help change what mechanics have told them is the lousy image they think people have of them, so they're tossing the girls and placing Norman Rockwell-type ads in places like Better Homes and Gardens, "in order to give back to the industry." Besides, he says, nobody was hanging the darn thing up anymore. It's the end of the century, girls, and the courting is just beginning. Your wallet is the best tool in town. Can the Makita drill girl be far behind?

My husband has a now-collectible 1993 Snap-on calendar. It's worn from its recent life in the shed, or perhaps the constant need to check a March date where a perky blonde in lace-trimmed white ankle socks resides. There's one woman for every two months, dressed in your standard boob-and pussy-enlightening attire. The girls pose against a backdrop of some fabulous vintage cars--here a Tucker, there a '54 red Corvette. I love Ms. May-June: She's a naturally well-endowed mechanic; yet when she grips those needle-nose pliers that close to her crotch, all I can think of is my gynecologist. But even my mouth is watering--that 1948 cream-colored Willy's-Overland Jeepster with convertible top she's working on desperately wants me.

Perhaps Snap-on has missed an equal marketing opportunity here. Instead of no calendars, they need two. I like hot cars, and if they mated them with a few well-tooled fellas, I might check the day and year at my shop once in awhile, too. And when beautiful mechanic and Calvin Klein model Jenny Shimizu, who sports a tattoo of a woman riding bareback on a wrench, wants to gander at the girlie calendar, she's got hers and I've got mine.

Mechanics don't need their image changed--like carpenters, they're sexy because they use tools. It's that simple. And just because a car guy tried to tell me I would never make it out of his state without new shocks doesn't mean they're all bad. Snap out of it and take a self-esteem course already.

Bye-bye, Snap-on girl. Hope your tools of the trade treat you kindly and you get a job tit-teasing with one of the other calendars. Or try Sears--they have a high turnover in the brake department.

See you in the lube pit, warriors.

--Hannah Glasston

January 5 - January 11, 1995

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