Unwanted Corkpull
reallifemag.com
reallifemag.com
I find Marie Kondo's advice on this very practical: https://konmari.com/gifts-that-dont-spark-joy/
“The true purpose of a present is to be received.”
"... You don’t have to keep using the gift forever. If you try using the item and decide that it still doesn’t suit you, thank it for the joy it brought when you first received it – and bid it farewell. The true purpose of a present is to be received, because gifts are a means of conveying someone’s feelings for you. When viewed from this perspective, there is no need to feel guilty about parting with a gift that ultimately doesn’t spark joy."
Question: Has anyone here ever used the can opener on a swiss army knife? It is there. It is slow but does work. For all my corkscrews, many times I've found myself without a can-opener and had to resort to the swiss army knife.
I have. I used it to cut shoelaces. I immediately regretted the decision.
Works fine, I'm pretty handy with it, not much slower than the standard clamp and crank style.
As for opening cans, I use it for that after the last can opener I had fell to bits about a decade ago. Takes a bit of practice but you can chunk through a can in about 10 seconds reliably. It also opens cans that the can openers won't grip properly.
I've used it to build a couple of PCs with as well as the only tool.
As for not drinking, most of the wine I get gifted goes into a pot and is used for cooking. I'll only drink it if there's someone interesting to drink it with, which is sadly not happening that often these days.
Your apartment, your life, your fault. Lots of people take "reduce, reuse, recycle" extremely seriously: generating very little trash, only owning things they need, not replacing them until they're broken, and then getting a used replacement. And in fact, if you just got rid of that junk by giving it to Goodwill or a Free Stuff Facebook group, you'd be helping reduce the consumption of new goods, too. Having it sit in that drawer is the second worst thing you could do.
Unless I'm intimate with someone's present, pressing needs, the only gift I'll dare to buy another adult will be food, drinks, or experiences.
If you need a corkscrew, the only one you'll ever need is a double-stepped waiters corkscrew (I own a Creuset [0] which is fine but there's plenty of cheaper alternatives). They're small, last forever and work for every tight or crumbling cork you might have to deal with.
I guess that if you buy very expensive wines and like to drink alone, you may find some use in a fancy contraption I've seen used in Burgundy this summer which allows you to pour wine while keeping the cork in the bottle [1]. It is expensive, high maintenance and fiddly.
Everything in between, I really don't see the point.
[0] https://www.lecreuset.fr/fr_FR/p/wt-110-sommelier-double-lev...
I bought it when my wife was pregnant and have continued to use it with white wines (I’m the only one who drinks white in my social group).
> Everything in between, I really don't see the point.
The point is some people have things like arthritis or other challenges that benefit from greater mechanical advantage.
But I do agree this isn't a good gift item unless you specifically know the person needs a new corkscrew. I hate having redundant stuff.
they are ugly, not particularly ergonomic and age horribly.
But there are models that have a two-handed operation that doesn't require the tiny bit of skill the GP's one need to not break the cork.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=476wTEKDOVc (1 minute).
By combining one or more longer levers with gearing/worm drive, many do exactly that.
As for fancy contraptions, these can be avoided by drinking the whole bottle when you open it, preferably with someone interesting at hand to share it! Wine is awful stuff without good company.
The solution to not getting stuff I don't want is simple (even though I could appreciate Tony Chocolonely chocolate, or a Steam voucher). I tell people to not bother, give our young kids some more instead. At a certain age in life, if you want/need something you buy it, and you don't what (what I call in Dutch) prullaria (anymore). Boring? Difficult? No problem, my kids are easier to serve. Although I do remove (sometimes temporarily) and eventually resell stuff of theirs. Even there, I believe less is more and its easier to clean and sort, too. But buying allows them to try things out.
Seriously though, Swiss Army Knives are the epitome of "jack of all trades, master of none". It's so much better to use the proper tool for the job. I've had the same $10 sommelier knife longer than I've ever owned a Swiss Army Knife (since my wine knife stays in the kitchen drawer).
One comment on Coravin from a professional (I've only used it a couple of times) is that it works well on some corks and not on others, particularly older ones. They can leak significantly, which makes it useless for your expensive old cab.
Also, temperature stability becomes VERY critical as any change causes pressure in the bottle to change, and air to ex-change!
If you have a "certain level of wealth", why would you move from tiny apartment to tiny apartment? You have no need to sell your previous one, or just no need to move. Also, why are they tiny?
It sounds like you're talking about being nomadic on a middle to high income.
Most wealthy people I know own big houses in places like Kensington or Hampstead or whatever the equivalent is. They might also have a pied a terre or three, sure, but they're not constantly moving.
Stuff takes space, stuff adds clutter, some stuff requires administrative overhead, most stuff requires maintenance.
I prefer tiny apartments in central neighbourhoods than bigger ones in the suburbs. Stuff enters into that equation. I can't afford a big house in Kensington. So OK, if I could afford a big house in Kensington plus a couple of pied-à-terre, maybe I wouldn't worry so much about stuff. I could have an extra room for a corkscrew collection and hired hands to deal with it. Stuff staff.
I added the "certain level of wealth" qualifier to make it clear that I didn't mean to claim that being burdened by stuff is a universal experience. It's a problem tied to abundance, like obesity and information overload. This level of wealth is much lower than what most people would consider "wealthy".
Most people, even relatively well-off ones will keep free stuff. And will be in pain either because they will actually continue using it, and get annoyed by its low quality, or stop using it, but leave it around as junk because of the instinct to hoard.
As for Oxo itself, I find the brand frustrating.
The author rightly asserts that Oxo devices are utterly hideous... But on the other hand, Oxo is one of the few brands that is both consistently available and consistently high quality.
Now that shopping is a minefield of unusably defective low-quality goods from anonymous Chinese ephemeral marks, reputable built-for-life brands with a wide spectrum of products like Oxo are critical to survival.
An Oxo kitchen utensil may be bulbous and black, but it won't be rusty, bent, cracked, tarnished, peeling, oily, or poisonous.
Low quality products are infiltrating markets, including Amazon, at an alarming rate. Take a small category as a signal: 3d printer filament vacuum bags. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of nearly-identical listings for what can best be described as a glorified ZipLoc, 2 mil storage bag with a piece of tape over a hole to be used as a "valve." I left an honest review about how horrible, overpriced, and useless this product was. The seller then had the audacity to email me directly 3x to bribe me to delete the review.
I've seen faster. In a luxury restaurant. It was just a long curved awl with a T handle. No idea how difficult it is to master or how good it is for problem corks. But fast? Sure.
Never seen one in shops.
Edit: curved I mean a soft S shape. No screw.
My first impulse is "give it to a thrift store", which is where I buy all of my clothing. But then I think about how poorly-organized and unpredictable the housewares department at the thrift store is, and wonder if, once it was donated, if anyone would ever buy it. We do a bad job at recycling in our society, but we do an even worse job at reusing. Imagine if reuse were something we were really dedicated to: thrift stores would pool their inventories and rationalize their stocking in a way that would make the nearest thrift store a viable choice when you want a specific common item, and not just when you're browsing to see what you can find.
For its refusal to signify, its bulk, and its sheer unnecessariness in my already-overstuffed drawer, I’ve been ready to ditch this corkpull for months. During the pandemic, though, it’s even more impossible than usual to get rid of things. After a year inside with all my objects, clutter has taken on a malevolent unruliness, tote bags procreating inside other tote bags and external hard drives with unknown contents taunting from the back of the closet. Boxes and paper grocery bags pile up along the hallway, full of things to be gotten rid of. But the thrift stores and donation drop-offs are still closed, or have limited hours. And you know that most of those things don’t get sold.
And might I complain about the adjective "famous" attached to an essay by an author I've never heard of, and suspect most of the HN readership has never heard of? I'd settle for "noted", I guess.
edit: seems like you're using the lever ("the part that pushes against the bottle rim") to open the bottle. You may want to ditch it altogether: just hold the bottle between your legs and pull on the corkscrew to extract the cork.
If I understand correctly, the problem is the existence of 3 corkscrews in their drawer? And the big one works best... So throw out the other two? Or at least relegate them to deep storage?
This might not even be a problem, with proper propitiation of Anoia.
I have a folding waiters corkscrew included in my work and home took kit and a multi tool with a corkscrew in my laptop bag.
It was a different time.
Indeed, I would rather have a banal corkscrew than have to read a totally banal essay. At least the corkscrew does not falsely purport to impart wisdom to me.
I guess some (not implying you) might consider the observations somewhat shallow, and maybe they would find the solution to be "simple". Just throw more stuff out.
[0] https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=ifdz4x...
The implications of these questions are exactly what the essay is about.