New amazing invention

You know the pathetically un-sharp knives in my drawer I whine about every so often? Well, as it happens, THOSE KNIVES ARE NO LONGER UN-SHARP.

You see, yesterday I was in the kitchen gadgetry aisle at a store -- never mind which one, because as it turns out, you can find these things, like, everywhere -- and I happened to see an unusually-shaped object that I could not figure out what it was, as Aisling would say. I slid the object off its hanging display and read these words: Knife Sharpener.


Knife sharpener??!!


You mean.....?


And I can...sharpen?


Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!

This find ranks up there with the new potato peeler I bought about a month ago. My old potato peeler finally fell apart, and I was so glad because that thing was so dull, it wouldn't even peel soft butter. When I put it in the kitchen wastebasket, I thought back and realized that I'd had that potato peeler since I moved out of my parents' house, which was twenty-two years ago. Yes, that was my first potato peeler I bought as a Young Woman with a Career.

I'm not sure why I felt I had to keep on using that peeler. Maybe I was under the impression that we on this mortal coil were under strict rules for owning one potato peeler per lifetime, I don't know. But I do know that my new potato peeler cost all of $2.49 and it doesn't make my hand hurt and it peels potatoes like a champion.

You know what I'm going to do when it is no longer sharp?

I'M GOING TO THROW IT AWAY.

Likewise, with the knives. I thought you just had to keep using them until they got to the point where it would be easier to just try to rip your pork chop apart with your teeth like a dog. At the church I went to when I was growing up, there was an elderly gentleman who came to the annual bazaar to sharpen knives (I always wanted him to sing the song "Who Will Buy?" from Oliver! ...."Knives, knives to grind..." but he wouldn't, I'm sad to say.) When he passed away, I guess somewhere deep inside I must have thought that there would now be no sharp knives ever again in the world, no never. Because, a knife sharpener? That you can have at your own house? I didn't know you could have one of those.

My knife sharpener is just a little thing, kind of shaped like an egg. It cost $10, but there were some other electric sharpeners (electric!) on the shelf below the gadget display and those cost anywhere from $29.99 to $69.99.

I was kind of scared of them.

So my new knife sharpener came home with me last night and I sharpened all the knives I could lay my hands on. I even got some out of the dishwasher and hand washed them: that's how awesomely proud I was of this new acquisition. I am please to say that my knives are now as sharp as my mother's ten million dollar set of Cutco knives that can still julienne a human hair, even after seventeen years of going through the dishwasher. (I don't think the enormous block of Cutco knives she and my dad bought one summer from Pat's friend Brad, who is now a veterinarian, actually cost one million dollars, but it was somewhere close to that. An outlandish price for knives, I thought at the time, but I have to admit they still look and cut like brand new.)

I have no explanation for why I, an educated woman, did not know of the existence of knife sharpeners. If my ignorance bothers you, just remind yourself that I know a lot more than I need to about the questions in the Trivial Pursuit Genus I edition and let it go. I do know that I just diced three onions and two cloves of garlic for some barbecue sauce I'm making and it was so simple and so easy. I love my new knife sharpener!!!