So I pick up a pair of scissors and go to snip open some paper item, and PLONK! The damn things fall apart in my hand.
This is the type of scissors that has plastic handles. I always thought they were regular scissors only dipped in a plastic coating to make the handles more comfortable to use. No. Ohhhhhh no. The “plastic coating” IS the handles!
Annoyed, I tossed the thing into an empty plastic wastebasket. It goes SPROINGGGGG! and the handle shoots off. If it weren’t inside the basket, it would have flown across the room.
Nice. Do I want to make a special trip to…where???? Target? A sewing store? Bed Bath & Beyond???…to buy a new pair of shears? Of course not. Call up “scissors” on Amazon. Not surprisingly, they’re all made with plastic handles now. Enter “scissors metal handle” in the search bar and bring up a few all metal scissors, amongst a plethora of “soft grip handle” scissors. These — the real ones, I mean — range in price from $17 to $34, as compared to six or seven bucks for the “soft grip” junk.
For cryin’ out loud. That is the second episode of shoddy imported junk this week. We also have the Case of the Mop Bucket.
Yes. How hard is this? A mop bucket, right? Seems like the sort of thing you’d find in every corner dime store. Oh, wait…
I’ve had one of those for some gawdawful number of years. Brought it over here from the old house when I moved in back in 2000 and aught 4, so it’s at least 15 or 16 years old. Holds four gallons or so. Probably more than that, actually. I think of it as a standard mop bucket.
But noooooo. No more.
Its handle broke yesterday morning while I was mixing acid to pour into the pool. No big deal, I think: I have to run up to the Walmart later on, so I’ll just pick one up there.
Bucket. Walmart. Seems like a natural pairing, doesn’t it?
At the risk of repeating myself: No more!
The only bucket they have in the cleaning department is this ridiculous little flimsy red thing. Holds 2.5 gallons.
Seriously? If you put a string mop in that, the mop would soak up all the water in the little plastic pot. How exactly would one rinse the mop out in this fine device?
Oh well. I have to go to Home Depot. They’ll have a real bucket.
Uh huh: No more!
They also were peddling the 2.5-gallon red plastic toy bucket. And only the scrub bucket, unless you wanted one of those hulking janitorial things on wheels.
Get back here, search for it on Amazon: find an Oxo bucket that appears to be identical to the Deceased. Said to hold four gallons. How much?
Hang onto your hat: sixteen dollah! For a freaking plastic scrub bucket! Mmmhmmm: four dollars a gallon. 😀
They delivered the thing overnight, and I’ll say it’s actually better than the old one (or appears to be…), because it has measurements for both detergent and water embossed on its plastic interior. That’s kinda cool. Problem is, as you’ll recall from chemistry class: when combining chemicals (such as acid and water) it’s A to Z, never the other way around, lest you blast yourself in the face with a nifty little chemical reaction. So: acid to water, not water to acid. Too bad…that could have removed one step from the water balancing chore. Oh well: at least I was able to get a bucket.
You understand where the rage that fuels the Trumpeters comes from, when you contemplate these annoyances. Blue-collar jobs sent off-shore, and products that used to be made by Americans — and made competently — manufactured as instantly disposable trash and sent back to us. Reverse racism presented as righteousness. Insistence that guns must be taken out of our sticky little hands, but no clue as to how to address the meth, heroin, and homicidal lunacy issues. Light bulbs that don’t emit light. Clothes washers that don’t wash clothes. Faucets that don’t dispense enough water to rinse a dinner plate in under ten minutes.
Grrrrr! I hate feeling crabby, but this is the kind of stuff that makes me feel crabby.
Make Our Plastic Buckets Great Again!