Its sitting on my kitchen counter right now all shiny and rather new in appearance. We had spied a small roadside flea market and had quickly pulled in with the hope that just such a treasure would present itself and there it was. On the old mans table amidst endless used kitchen utensils it sat like a jewel ……… a 1970’s model # 1407 Swing – Away can opener proudly stamped “Made in USA”. Its $2.00 price tag was unarguable and we made the purchase .
Diagonally behind us lives a family of which I hold little respect and we call their back yard the scrap metal yard. Not to infer they stockpile junk, that’s not so, but because that yard is the recipient of two years worth of the non working Chinese made junk I have periodically and furiously banished from my life. Just last week I launched in their direction the third can opener in fifteen months to land in their tall grass to rust away with countless other items. Occasionally when they get the lawn cut I can hear the tink of metal as a spinning blade sends something into their neighbors new vinyl fence.
In that yard has landed along with said can openers, toilet roll holders that pin full rolls so tightly to the wall that fully one third of their bulk is desperately shredded before a usable square might roll off. Towel hooks angled to immediately permit towels to slide off and to the floor. Ornate shower curtain hooks made with a minimalist amount of metal so that they jump off to clang on the tile the moment the curtain is touched and of course the useless shower curtain rod soon followed. In all honesty I’m not quite certain where my 18 month old Price Pfister kitchen faucet was made….but that son of a bitch is over there as well.
We’ve rather quickly gone from a manufacturing nation to a nation of shoppers and I’m going to be doing more shopping at the flea market. And this morning I might take the Chinese lead and have fish for breakfast ……just to try out my new Swing – Away opener on a can of tuna.
