Every once in awhile Ms. Eclectic comes home with a gadget that makes me roll my eyes. Don't get me wrong, I love gadgets, but sometimes I'm not persuaded they are worth the time, effort, and money. Many times, my eye-rolling is just my being a stodgy old poop.
Here are three that she has bought, I have pooh-poohed, and that I wouldn't want to live without now that we have them:
- An electric three-hole punch. I couldn't believe one of these things would be worthwhile for a home office, but Ms. Eclectic bought one twenty years ago, and we have both made extensive use of it. If you are ever making manuals or putting together binders full of material, this sort of thing is a hand-saver, a time-saver, and a mental-health saver. We have the Swingline commercial version shown below, but there are others that are cheaper. We don't use it much nowadays, but back when we were both active in many areas, it came it very handy.
- An automatic jar opener. When I was younger, opening jars was a macho thing to do, but as people age, we lose muscle tone, maybe even suffer from increasing arthritis, and it gets pretty hard to open jars. Those things with teeth work pretty well but still require some strength. What really works well and requires virtually no human strength is a battery-powered electric jar opener. They work like a charm and are really fun to use.... really.
- An electric corkscrew is the latest item Ms. Eclectic purchased and about which I raised my eyebrows more than a bit. We had a fancy-schmancy one that was in a box and required only a push down and a lift up to remove the cork. But, truth be told, I thought it was a nuisance, much preferring the old wing-type corkscrew that is so often denigrated by wine snobs. What's more, we both had agreed that wine with screw-top caps was preferable because they are so much easier to open and then reseal.
But an electric corkscrew (with a rechargeable battery) changes all that. You put the devise on top of the bottle (after removing the foil, of course), push a button and let 'er rip until the motor stops. Voila! the cork is removed. Push a different button and it ejects the cork. Now we try to buy fewer bottles of wine with screw caps and more with corks, just so we can use this new toy.
. .
Nevertheless, we have never had any of the products described here. And they don't really appeal to me.