(Shotgun Spratling)

Etheridge: Holding our breath with the RPI

When I was a boy, I worked with a man who had an old hammer. Most of the time, it worked fine. Then occasionally, the hammer’s head would slip away on the backswing, and there’d be a projectile hurling airborne.

He would collect the tool, patch up any damage it caused, and repair the hammer. That hammer did its job, most of the time, anyway. But you never really knew when it wouldn’t. We all knew the hammer was faulty, but because of habit, thrift, or stubbornness, the man still used it along with his other tools.

The RPI is[…]