My horrible summer compulsion began with the “weight-activated squirrel-proof” bird feeder, advertised on social media in videos of spinning squirrels thwarted of their countless pursuit of bird food. Imagine a small child, unhurt, flung off a spinning tilt-a-whirl.

The sales pitch shows an outdoorsy homeowner in L.L. Bean flannel installing a tall, sturdy cylindrical feeder with a round, wire platform on which the birds perch. Ah, but when a squirrel grabs the identical wire, it spins wildly — weight activated! — and the squirrel flings off into the bushes or onto the bottom.

This looked like colossal fun. I ordered immediately. Two feeders hang outside the window of what passes for my office. I even have immensely enjoyed watching the feeding birds only to have the birds frightened away by marauding squirrels who grab onto the feeder inelegantly and devour its contents.

Now, because of some genius, I had the answer on order. With excitement normally reserved for British automotive parts, I tore open the box upon its arrival.

“It’s here! It’s here!”

“What’s?”

“My weight-activated squirrel-proof spinning bird feeder!”

It wasn’t tall. It was stubby. And the cylinder wasn’t sturdy. It was flimsy. Nevertheless it had a top and it had a spinning rimmed wire base. It looked vaguely just like the one on the video.

I loaded that baby with feed and hung it next to a non-spinning feeder.

Nothing happened.

I mean for days, weeks, months, nothing. Not one bird has visited that feeder. No squirrels, either. Worse, neither bird nor squirrel has visited the non-spinning feeder. It’s as if the brand new feeder is cursed, exuding its cheapness and tomfoolery to even squirrels.

That didn’t stop me. Twitter, or X, is filled with gadgets and I’m a sap. There’s the LED rechargeable tactical flashlight, 90,000 high lumens. Tactical, mind you.

And will someone please explain to me the way you eliminate mosquitos without the Mosquito Killer Lamp and its LED biometric wave technology? Travel pillows, model airplanes, portable ultrasonic tooth cleaners, pants with built-in hangers.

How a couple of wood splitter? I got one. Probably not a splitter, but a tool by which you place the wood to be split, a forged iron cylinder. At the underside is a wedge base. Put the log within the thing, resting on the wedge — that way, you don’t need to hold it; its selling point — and hammer it with a sledge.

I had some birch logs to separate, from a fresh limb that got here down this summer. I reared back and let the sledge go, like a man on the carnival attempting to ring the bell.

Do not forget that feeling you bought as a child whenever you hit a baseball with the improper a part of the bat on a chilly spring day and the sting began in your hands and went up your arms and into your shoulders and across your back? Yeah. The wood was so hard that the sledge bounced and hit the forged iron.

I used to be told that I didn’t tear anything seriously enough to require surgery, but to regain using my arms, I might need to exercise with large rubber bands attached to a closed door. They appear like ribbons.

I’ve seen them advertised.

Joe Soucheray could be reached at jsoucheray@pioneerpress.com. Soucheray’s “Garage Logic” podcast could be heard at garagelogic.com.