The right tool for the right job

You know the saying about having the right tool for the right job? It's true. This weekend whilst investigating an issue under the hood of a car, I dropped a small plastic clip. It bounced off the intake manifold and rolled down between the manifold and cylinder head to come to rest between a couple of coolant pipes. Nice one. The hole it fell down wasn't big enough to get a couple of fingers in, let alone a hand. One quick trip to insert-your-favourite-car-parts-store-here and for $6 I had a retriever, also known as a pick-up tool. Or in tech-speak, a doodad for getting stuff out of tight places. It's a spring-loaded claw on the end of a flexible tube. I had someone hold a torch (flashlight if you're American) and carefully poked said tool down into the gap and was able to retrieve the plastic clip.
If I'd have gone poking around with a screwdriver, it would have ended up falling on to a timing belt or something, inevitably ending up further out of reach. The right tool did the job properly and quickly.