Monday 31 December 2012

I was given a

"gadget" today. My sister found it. She is, as she puts it, "into that sort of stuff". I am not.
I am unlikely to use it. I rarely use "gadgets", those complicated objects which have replaced the simpler things which work well.
My maternal grandmother collected gadgets. She had all manner of them for the kitchen. They supposedly sliced, scooped, grated, cut, curled, poured, sprinkled, mixed and whizzed. Perhaps they did  other thngs as well. I do not know. My mother inherited all these things. Her brother did not want any of them.
As my parents were transferred from rural to city schools some months after my grandmother's death they moved into the house she had been living in. Everything was still there. My mother just added to the collection, even keeping some of the duplicates. She gave some to my brother when he left home. My sisters also got more duplicates when they left home. I escaped overseas for a while so I did not get any of them. 
This gadget arrived in a box. There is a note on the lid "similar as to seen on TV".  It is, of course, "made in China". Perhaps my sister did see it on television. She watches far more television than I do. I can understand the attraction for her. It is the sort of thing which would appeal to her quirky sense of humour.
From the picture on the box this gadget has three legs which come together at the top rather like a triangular Eiffel Tower. There is a black tube of some sort into which you apparently put four AA batteries.
Batteries? The need for batteries worries me. I am used to manually powered or mains powered gadgets. The grater is manually powered, so is the old rotary beater. Even the Senior Cat (who leaves the kitchen department to me) can use these things.
So, the batteries go in and, presumably, you switch the thing in. It wiggles and jiggles and (perhaps) jumps.
         "So what is it supposed to do?" the Senior Cat asked me.
         "I think it is supposed to stir things," I told him.
He looked at it some more and then asked,
         "Can't you just use a spoon or something?"

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