Coffee heat rising

Stuff You Can’t Get Anymore

After the latest Cleaning Lady visit, I discovered my favorite old (very old) nail brush has gone missing. I must have put it in some not-routine place, but having searched every drawer, shelf, cabinet, and countertop in the house and the garage, I’m afraid it’s time to declare it lost. And that is not a good thing.

It’s almost impossible to buy a decent nail brush anymore. They used to be in every corner drugstore, and now: gone! At one point I bought an expensive brush at L’Occitane — sweetly appealing with its wooden handle and its “natural” bristles. And sweetly useless. The bristles are so soft that none of them will get under your nails to scrub the dirt off. And whose idea was it to make something that sits in water out of wood?

So it was off to Amazon, that purveyor of so much Stuff You Can’t Get Anymore. Apparently my perception that decent nail brushes no longer exist is just about right on target. Heee! Check out the one-star reviews of the one made by Fuller! And the Rubbermaid nail brush that rusts!

Contemplating this dismal state of affairs, it occurs to me that there’s an awful LOT of Stuff You Can’t Get Anymore. Videlicet, exempli gratia:

Public phones
Information operators
A human being on the other end of virtually any phone call
Zebco’s Rhino Reel (well, there are 16 left at Amazon, actually…but try to find it at your local Sportsman’s Warehouse)
A decent bra
Pyrex that’s undeniably safe to use
Real Eskimo Pies
Mounds Bars that are big enough to matter
Decent sheets that don’t fall apart within three months and don’t break the bank
A washing machine that works and doesn’t make braids with your clothes
Pump jockeys (except in states where self-serve gasoline is outlawed)
Ice picks
Functional showerheads
Wind-up alarm clocks
4711
Wind Song
Mentholatum (you can still order it on Amazon, but it, like Vaseline, is now made in China and so not something you’d want to put around your chapped lips and nose)
Privacy
Public civility

LOL! What Stuff do you find you can’t get anymore?

13 thoughts on “Stuff You Can’t Get Anymore”

  1. Looked for a good vegetable brush a while back. Store clerks looked at me like I had grown a third eye!

  2. Apparently we are soul sisters. Mounds has been my favorite candy since I was a wee child……and I have made almost as many trips around the sun as you. 😀

    • Ah, a sister in chocolate and coconut!!!

      How about licorice? Did you covet black licorice as a child?

      Almost as good as chocolate & coconut. You could get high on it, too. Supposedly. Actually, what you got was high blood pressure. 😀

  3. Charleston chews the loooong ones…This candy used to be 5 cents and lasted a long time. A decent paint brush that doesn’t break the bank…just priced a 2.5 inch angled paint brush …OVER $16…Aaaand Jack Purcell sneakers….these things wore like iron and were made of thick canvas that lasted. Today you can get “Jack’s ” made in China but the canvas is very thin and they don’t have the same support insole even though they go for $65-75…

  4. Narrow size shoes have become as rare as hen’s teeth. I went to the shoe store I’ve shopped at for nearly 20 years to pick up a pair of KEDS. They don’t carry narrow sizes any more. I finally ordered a pair from Zappos (first time) and they actually fit, thank goodness!
    I can’t wear mediums, they just flap around on my feet. If shoe manufacturers stop making narrow sizes altogether, I don’t know what I’m going to do.

    • Look at European shoes. One problem no doubt is that so many Americans are now overweight that most people’s feed have prob’ly spread, meaning less call for narrow shoes. Don’t know if Europeans wear canvas shoes, but the styles I’ve found are often a lot more comfortable than the made-in-China stuff American manufacturers are selling. Check out Footprints.com.

  5. Our nail brush died and the only one I could find didn’t have the ability to get garden soil out from under the nails, either. DF was disappointed. If I can find one that looks like the old one it will be his Christmas present.
    My best friend loves Horlick’s Original Malt but it can be hard to find in stores. It’s available on Amazon, but pricey. Thank goodness for free Amazon GCs that I earn on Swagbucks….

    • Gosh. Remember actual, real malted milkshakes? Does anyone still serve those?

      Good luck with the nail brush. Check Amazon…they have quite a few. Vermont Country Store’s online catalog is devoid of the things.

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