Sunday, February 26, 2017

Good As New


I'll tell you something about what you see on the left here. It's a knitting scissors now falling apart. It's beyond help or repair. Besides it's covered in white paint from a long forgotten project. It bites back at me every time I try to use it.

BUT I keep it in a jar beside my knitting table.

In my knitting basket there are two fairly new scissors but they hide under balls and hanks of wool.

The yellowish one up there I use, well, sorry, use is a fairly strong term.

I haul it out and hack at yarn that needs to be cut or packages that need opening or at loose threads. The points on it are worn off, saying it has dull edges would be a euphemism.

Hack. Because the effing thing doesn't work. At all.

But I keep trying. I have perfectly wonderful scissors up in the craft room and under aforesaid wool in the knitting basket.

And then, when all the above fails after an intense workout by me, I hunt for a working scissors.

See, there's life in Old Yeller.

If only I could find it.

(Similar stories, anyone?)

And gawd, it's painful, but I'm tossing OY today.

16 comments:

  1. Funny. I have an old desk set where the handle of the letter opener is falling off and the scissors are bent at the end. But I still use them ... b/c my daughter gave them to me 20-some years ago.

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  2. I won't tell you what I cut my hair with yesterday. Mine have a cracked blue handle.

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  3. As I read this, I am sitting at an old rather battered desk dating from my grandmother's girlhood in the 20's, so I get it...it was hers and no way can I get rid of it...

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  4. My prize, my mother's sewing scissors, they broke several weeks ago, reaching in sewing basket I cut myself on what was left, so now tossed them, hated too.

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  5. I've got a pair of scissors like that. Maybe they should get together and become a pair. Or maybe that should be a pair of pairs.

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  6. The comb I use every day to pimp up what's left of my grey thatch is one left at my parents' home some 30+ years ago by the barber who visited to cut Dad's hair when he could no longer get out to the shop. The comb's made of a different kind of plastic from modern versions and the teeth tightly "just right". I wash it tenderly, dreading the day it breaks and it has to go the way of your OY! I shall probably stick it together with duct tape before that happens! :-)

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    Replies
    1. Twilight this is for you. The story of Mabel the hair dresser in a village in Nova Scotia. 90+ and still a cutting and colouring hair every day. https://www.nfb.ca/film/mabel/

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  7. "You can't keep everything forever," said my mother to me when I was packing for a move. It prompted me to give away a lamp that was a gift for their 1958 wedding, and a set of "good silverware" in a wooden box that had belonged to my grandmother. I've regretted it since, though I know Mom was right. - Kate

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  8. I use a pair of scissors that have the tip broken off of one blade because my husband used them to pry something. I have several other scissors, but keep these -- decided I'd use them for more heavy duty work with pkgs, etc., then if they broke -- they're already broke.

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  9. Thirty years ago I bought a black leather handbag for twenty dollars, Italian lovely soft leather, nice long strap, just right size etc...now the lining hangs out and is ripped, the strap mended twice, the magnet to close stopped working years ago and it has paint on the four worn corners (only a little)...Did I mention I have purchased five new designer bags through the years, MEANING to throw out my old faithful but for some reason I just can't part with it..my sister calls me the "bag"lady LOL and hates being seen with it...what can I say, if I can still use it I just won't lose it...loyal till the end :)

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  10. I feel for you. Luckily, for me, as soon as something breaks and is beyond mending I will chuck it out, sometimes with a heavy heart, but it's got to go. I am not superstitious yet do believe that what is broken imparts bad vibes, reminds you of what once was and is no longer. Sounds like Feng Shui, doesn't it? The very thought makes me chuckle. Don't ask. And whatever you do, always put the lid down on your toilet seat lest money drains through your fingers like water.

    U

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  11. I'm fairly ruthless about getting rid of things that are falling apart. Just because it isn't worth the annoyance. Except for my old house - it has a number of problems but I don't want to live anywhere else.

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  12. Thanks for all your own unique stories. I should add I placed no value, sentimental or otherwise on the scissors, just this poverty mentality that seems to run in a few segments of my family (ah, there's a bit of life in that leaky/broken thing yet.)

    I have to laugh at myself.

    XO
    WWW

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  13. Several years ago, my two pups chewed one handle loop off of my pinking shears. I still have them in my sewing box. They were pricey and 'kind of' work with only taking tiny bites out of the palm of my hand!

    "Maybe I'll hold on to them just a bit longer!" she thought, miserly!

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