Then it dawned on me. It wasn't at the cabin at all. I had split the handle and the head was in the other car. See "Gang aft agley in the North Woods".
As the title implies, there is no maul at the mall. Well, there might be at Sears, but I haven't gone to Sears for years, another big box avoidance of mine. Hardware, drug, and grocery stores, the really important types of stores are just not found in malls. I think I vaguely remember one mall having a hardware store other than Sears. Well, maybe it was only a small mall.
I used to have three favorite hardware stores within ten minutes of my house, now it's down to one and it was the smallest of the three. Denny's Ace Hardware may be small, but the staff is knowledgable. I asked a roving clerk where handles were and she took me right to a reasonable selection. We selected a hickory handle the fit the head.
When I got to the cabin, I pounded the head onto the handle and inserted the wedge. Now I have a working maul again, but I won't be using it for a while. Watch for the blog entry "I'm not left-handed".
