SCISSORS
When I was growing up, I only remember having one pair of scissors in the house. They got used for absolutely everything...............all Mum's dressmaking, school projects, cutting nails, trimming wrapping paper, and a whole heap of other things. Then we acquired a pair of hairdressing scissors, and I thought they were so special!
Funny, I don't recall Mum's scissors ever being blunt or refusing to do the job we asked them to do, but perhaps they were better made in those days. They tell me that that the way that the two halves are pivoted together is just as important as the sharpness of the blades.
One thing Mum did not need scissors for was to break into the food supplies like we need to nowadays. I think I would starve without a pair or two of decent scissors in the kitchen (not to mention my can opener and jar openers.)
I have a confession to make...I could probably assemble a more impressive collection of scissors than those in the picture, just from our house. That is, if I searched all the nooks and crannies where I have hidden them...or where they are hiding from me! I have a real scissor fetish, and I feel dreadfully insecure if I do not have a pair or two within arm's reach wherever I am sitting in the house. It is a bit like your reading glasses...you just cannot manage without a functional pair close by! My addiction and insecurity may have begun when the kids were little, and were always borrowing and losing my scissors. I took to hiding them in places where they would never look....like the tea towel drawer. I think some of them are still hidden.
Scissors in the handbag are pretty important too. You never know when you want to snip off the tail of someone's shirt that has the most gorgeous fabric..or even a button or two to add to your collection.
One has to be careful now that the airlines will not allow scissors in your hand luggage. The last time I travelled, I was careful to empty my handbag of scissors the night before. Imagine my disbelief, then, when the X-ray machine leading to the secure area at the Terminal showed that I still had scissors in my bag! Not one pair, but three!! It took me and two security staff about ten minutes to extricate these three very tiny pairs of nail scissors from the deepest recesses of my handbag. Bernie was extremely embarrassed.
Actually, those three pairs of nail scissors had been confiscated before, from other people. Collections of scissors, clippers, nail files etc. regularly turn up at Trash and Treasure Sales for charity...they are donated by the airport staff from the massive collections they acquire when they have to confiscate them. And people like me, who are addicted to scissors, buy them up big time!
They tell me that a form of scissors have been around since 1500 B.C. in Egypt, and the modern cross-bladed ones since 100 A.D. in Roman times. In scientific terms, scissors are a tool or machine with a first class double lever with the pivot hinge acting as a fulcrum.
When I was in Canberra, I heard a talk by the Scissorman, now a well-known Aussie identity, especially loved by crafty ladies. He told us that you can now obtain(at a huge price) ceramic scissors, which never need sharpening. But they will break if you drop them on the tiles.
Bumblefingers, who is always picking her pins and needles and scissors up off the floor says "Forget it." Until they invent unbreakable ones, I have plenty to be going on with!