The poetry of failed ambition, according to this delightful little essay in the Washington Post, of all places, about the retro-styled re-issue of the original WD-40 can! A sample:
Serious mechanics have kept it handy since the early 1960s, when it grew from a locally marketed San Diego product to nationwide availability. And serious mechanics still use it. But for generations it has also been the reliable helpmeet of the home klutz. WD-40 is to bad handymen what cream of mushroom soup is to bad cooks. You start with a little, applied close to the problem. Then you apply more. You swear like a stevedore and bash the offending mechanical object with something heavy. By the time you give up and take it to someone who actually knows how to fix it, whatever you've been working on is covered in a light glaze of oily ooze.
A glaze that smells sweet, sickly sweet, like the nectar that robotic bees would suck from mechanical flowers. If lawnmowers wore cologne, it would smell like WD-40, the Old Spice of the two-stroke engine.
