Curse Of The Can Opener...

Is it too much to ask to just have a can opener that I don't have to fight with???

I had a perfectly good can opener... worked every time with no problems.

It was a Black and Decker SpaceSaver that I mounted under my cabinet when we first moved here 9 years ago. All was well until my oldest daughter hit it with something and broke it several years later. Ever since then I have been in Can Opener Hell!!!

I tried using several of those cheaper metal hand can openers that I had in my gadget drawer.... they were crap... wouldn't open a can for anything... wouldn't even get a good grip on the can. So we bought a hand held battery operated one from Dollar General for about $6.... this one worked great for about 2 months when the motor burned out.

Our next purchase was a hand held $20 can opener from Belk... the kind that cuts the lid off under the rim so you can put it back on if you should choose to do so. It too worked great for a couple of years... now it's dull and doesn't cut so well anymore... you have to go around the can several times to actually get it cut... and on certain cans it just doesn't want to cut at all. Soup cans are just not going to open with this one anymore. Oddly enough... the larger the can the more likely it is to open it.

My hand starts to hurt after going around and around these blasted cans 3 or 4 times just to open one. So several months ago I decided it was time to replace my Black and Decker SpaceSaver. I went to Walmart to make my purchase... brought it home hoping to install it into the same holes I had drilled for the previous one only to discover that it has been of course new and improved.... we all know that means new but probably not so improved. The holes didn't match up... so I got out my drill to make new holes.... and installed the can opener only to find out that under my particular cabinets it would not work... there was no way to install it so that the mechanism would lift up. I was not a happy camper! I packed it back into the box and took it back to Walmart and purchased the cheapy $6 counter top model... a can opener is a can opener right???? So I thought...

I threw away the packaging and the receipt... just happy to have a working can opener. Well.... after a few weeks and several cans that I had to fight with just to get them to stay put in the cutter I was growing more and more frustrated that the simple act of opening a can was such an ordeal. I finally got fed up and threw it in the trash declaring that that is exactly what it was.... a piece of trash!

A couple of weeks later we were in a thrift store and I saw a nice new looking counter top can opener for $4... I thought surely this one will work better so I bought it. The first few cans opened fine yet again.... then it started... is it me??? Have I lost the simple ability to open a can???.... An ability I've had since I was young child.... am I getting *that* old that I can't operate a can opener??? Apparently not... my 20 year old daughter screamed from the kitchen a couple of weeks ago for me to come and open a can for her because *she* couldn't do it either! Whew! What a relief... I'm not that old.... yet! After struggling for about 10 minutes (I kid you not!) and still not getting the can open I grew frustrated once more and threw... yes threw!... that one into the trash as well.

So here I am today still struggling to open cans with that hand held can opener that has to go around and around the can at least 3 times and then you have to pry the lid the rest of the way off. As I was cooking dinner.... instead of tossing the contraption out the back door.... I declared to my husband that as soon as we get our income tax refund back we are going to the most expensive store in town and buying the most expensive can opener that we can find!

Now for me to even think such a thought is totally out of character... yard sale... thrift store... Dollar General Store.... thrifty old girl that I am... wanting an expensive... surely over-priced can opener?!!! Oh well... you gotta do what you gotta do to open those blasted cans right?! Why can't they just put those pull tabs on all cans nowadays?? Or just get rid of cans all together and use jars with screw on lids??? Oh wait!... they used to that back in the old days... remember canning???

Oh well.... I guess I'm stuck in Can Opener Hell for a lil longer... but I *will* get a can opener some day that actually works! That or maybe a Ginsu knife!

A Lil Enchanted...