"Can't" Opener
I bought a can opener yesterday.
I was at home and looked at the can opener I had. Poor thing. It stared up at me out of my kitchen utility drawer like those abandoned puppies you see in those ads that ask you for just ten cents a day.
A faint voice came out from it—
"Kill-- me!" it squealed, rustily.
A tear came to my eye. It was time. How long had I kept the poor thing going, forcing it to endure far past its natural life? The teeth of its gears were ground to nubs. The handle, sticky and faded after the old rubber grip had worn away from the metal years ago. Rust and grime accumulated around its deep ridges and angled recesses. Disposing of this now ancient can opener wouldn't just be merciful, it was the sanitary thing to do.
Holding it delicately, I took each of its arms in the palms of my hands. "I'm sorry--" I said. It closed its eyes. The sweet embrace of cold death had arrived. With one easy snap, I broke the can opener in two-- and promptly dropped it in the garbage, stooping to pick up a few worn metal bits off the kitchen floor.
Well, that was that. But now, I needed a new can opener.
I went to the can opener store.
I walked down the can opener aisle.
Scanning quickly, I found the right can opener for me. I am not a can-opening professional. My demand for can openers is not industrial—I am an individual user, and the daily wear-and-tear on my can opener will be light. Just ask my old, now deceased, former can opener—who became the Smeagol of can openers through unnatural long life before I was through with it.
I walked to the checkout aisle. The attendant asked me if I found everything I was looking for. I wasn't sure—if I wasn't looking for it, I wasn't going to find it. But I had no time for philosophical dialectics, I had a can of black olives to open.
I quickly returned home. I withdrew the can opener from my bag. Fastened to its cardboard packaging via plastic zip ties, I opened my kitchen utility drawer to withdraw another old friend: scissors. Soon, scissors. Very soon. But today, I still have use for you. I clipped the zips and the can opener was free at last in my hand.
It's always hard to get accustomed to a new can opener, especially after being so familiar with my old one for so many years. It felt bulky and awkward in my hand. But there was a fluidity to the gears as I gave it a testing twist. The can opener industrial complex has been hard at work perfecting the can opener design since my last purchase. I'd get used to this new 'feel' soon enough, I was certain.
I advanced upon my unopened can of black olives like a thief with a knife approaching a lady with a purse in old movies. Music, from somewhere, intensified—violin strings drawn out into a painfully tense hanging note.
I opened the clamp of the can opener, positioned it against the edge of the can, and using my palm, clamped down on the two arms—clamping it down on the lip of the can.
I cannot emphasize how immediate, and how utterly complete the absolute crumbling of my newly purchased can opener in my hand was. It happened so quickly that my hand still retained the shape of the can opener for a moment after it had completely come apart, piece-by-piece, in my hand—before falling in a cascade of iron and plastic onto the counter and kitchen floor at my feet.
"Krwtwglkgngg!" was the sound it made, as near as I can recreate it phonetically.
For a second, I was shocked and stood there in frozen disbelief. Broken. Not just broken. Completely dismembered! My brand new can opener—which had undergone some mysterious and, frankly, unknowable life's journey just to arrive in my hand in my kitchen—had come apart completely, broken beyond repair before it had fulfilled its purpose even once.
In a wild moment—not my life, but the life of my can opener—flashed before my eyes. The troubled malaise I felt hit me like a wave: such waste! Waste of time. Waste of resources. Waste of money. Waste of human enterprise!
When I finally recovered enough to look at the remaining shrapnel of the can opener—I was incredulous. I thought of the iron mine the metal had been extracted from. The toil and back-breaking industry involved mining ore from the earth and transporting it to a rendering facility to turn it into workable steel.
Factories. Blistering furnaces. Dark, imposing machinery and the rape of natural resources—before it could be transferred to massive distribution centers, shipping sheets of metal from port to port, around the world, upon massive freight ships—cruising around the world, navigating harsh weather and averting around the territory of covetous pirates looking to exploit the raw value of these and other goods. A tapestry of supply chain webs connecting industry with commerce spanning the globe, influencing the lives of millions if not billions of people—just to transport steel to a manufacturing facility, somewhere in this wide world, to be processed further from base material to a refined tool.
There, it becomes a can opener—fed through more machinery, under the scrupulous eye of watchful factory workers, paid mere pennies a day—to assert the quality of the product they are producing. The product is gathered into massive bins of can openers, full of thousands of can openers just like it, before they are sorted out and packaged into their unique cardboard backing that hangs upon the display peg at the can opener store. Secured in place by one single machine that diligently wraps the can opener and nails it to the crucible of its cardboard backing—before it is sent upon a conveyor belt once again, loaded into boxes, and thrown into the bed of a truck to be driven upon miles of barren highway before, at last, it arrives at a warehouse distribution center.
There, the can opener has no name—no individual identity. It lies in wait, in the darkness, with its brothers and sisters—in confinement until it loses all concept of time. Day and night pass again and again, without end, until finally an order is placed. A can opener store, somewhere in the world, needs more! More can openers! Send us more! We've sold everything we have—but the masses are demanding more! More can openers! More can openers!
Off the box goes—once again loaded onto a freight truck and transported on its winding journey to the can opener store in need. In the air, over land, across the sea—someday, even, dare we even hope, into space!—before a cross-eyed man with a growth on his nose that may be cancerous working in the shipping and receiving center of the can opener store receives the parcel and opens the box of product.
He is the first, in weeks, to gaze upon the piles of can openers, ready to be heaped upon the masses that have cans in need of opening. He receives the individual items in inventory and verifies the amount matches the invoice—before a lackey is tasked with stocking the can openers on the store shelves.
Out the box is pushed, on a cart, through the store, to the aisle—as the lackey, burdened with debt and need for capital, dutifully loads each can opener onto the hook, careful that each is displayed so as to catch the eye of shoppers passing by.
That's where I entered the story. The life's journey of this can opener. Naïve as I was, in my need for a can opener, I foolishly thought this would be the answer to my black olive problems. Little did I know that this can opener's path would end without having accomplished its purpose, even once! And it wasn't as though the can opener had just broken a little. It nearly disintegrated into dust in my hand!
How many people did it take to produce this can opener?
How much money went into the infrastructure that could make its assembly possible?
How much time had gone into creating the network of supply chains that brought this can opener into my possession that day?
Only for it to not even work, once.
No lie, I took my can of black olives outside and beat the ever-loving hell out of it with a rock like a caveman. By the time I was finished, what I was left with was a salty, briny mush of olive flesh that I could pick at amid brittle shards of tin and suck off my fingers.
But at least it was reliable. At least it was handy. At least it was free, and at least it made me the arbiter of my own need for black olives.
I threw my demolished can into the recycling bin, and put down my rock outside. Who knows, I will likely need it again, soon.
I went inside and stood in post-traumatic stress, attempting to come to terms with the enormity of failure I had witnessed.
That was yesterday. Today, I decided to write this recount of the episode.
Rest assured, I will be sending this letter to the can opener's customer service inbox.
I shudder to think about the journey these words will go on in the fullness of time, and what this message's ultimate end will be.
I was at home and looked at the can opener I had. Poor thing. It stared up at me out of my kitchen utility drawer like those abandoned puppies you see in those ads that ask you for just ten cents a day.
A faint voice came out from it—
"Kill-- me!" it squealed, rustily.
A tear came to my eye. It was time. How long had I kept the poor thing going, forcing it to endure far past its natural life? The teeth of its gears were ground to nubs. The handle, sticky and faded after the old rubber grip had worn away from the metal years ago. Rust and grime accumulated around its deep ridges and angled recesses. Disposing of this now ancient can opener wouldn't just be merciful, it was the sanitary thing to do.
Holding it delicately, I took each of its arms in the palms of my hands. "I'm sorry--" I said. It closed its eyes. The sweet embrace of cold death had arrived. With one easy snap, I broke the can opener in two-- and promptly dropped it in the garbage, stooping to pick up a few worn metal bits off the kitchen floor.
Well, that was that. But now, I needed a new can opener.
I went to the can opener store.
I walked down the can opener aisle.
Scanning quickly, I found the right can opener for me. I am not a can-opening professional. My demand for can openers is not industrial—I am an individual user, and the daily wear-and-tear on my can opener will be light. Just ask my old, now deceased, former can opener—who became the Smeagol of can openers through unnatural long life before I was through with it.
I walked to the checkout aisle. The attendant asked me if I found everything I was looking for. I wasn't sure—if I wasn't looking for it, I wasn't going to find it. But I had no time for philosophical dialectics, I had a can of black olives to open.
I quickly returned home. I withdrew the can opener from my bag. Fastened to its cardboard packaging via plastic zip ties, I opened my kitchen utility drawer to withdraw another old friend: scissors. Soon, scissors. Very soon. But today, I still have use for you. I clipped the zips and the can opener was free at last in my hand.
It's always hard to get accustomed to a new can opener, especially after being so familiar with my old one for so many years. It felt bulky and awkward in my hand. But there was a fluidity to the gears as I gave it a testing twist. The can opener industrial complex has been hard at work perfecting the can opener design since my last purchase. I'd get used to this new 'feel' soon enough, I was certain.
I advanced upon my unopened can of black olives like a thief with a knife approaching a lady with a purse in old movies. Music, from somewhere, intensified—violin strings drawn out into a painfully tense hanging note.
I opened the clamp of the can opener, positioned it against the edge of the can, and using my palm, clamped down on the two arms—clamping it down on the lip of the can.
I cannot emphasize how immediate, and how utterly complete the absolute crumbling of my newly purchased can opener in my hand was. It happened so quickly that my hand still retained the shape of the can opener for a moment after it had completely come apart, piece-by-piece, in my hand—before falling in a cascade of iron and plastic onto the counter and kitchen floor at my feet.
"Krwtwglkgngg!" was the sound it made, as near as I can recreate it phonetically.
For a second, I was shocked and stood there in frozen disbelief. Broken. Not just broken. Completely dismembered! My brand new can opener—which had undergone some mysterious and, frankly, unknowable life's journey just to arrive in my hand in my kitchen—had come apart completely, broken beyond repair before it had fulfilled its purpose even once.
In a wild moment—not my life, but the life of my can opener—flashed before my eyes. The troubled malaise I felt hit me like a wave: such waste! Waste of time. Waste of resources. Waste of money. Waste of human enterprise!
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a can opener, breaking in a human hand—forever." O'Brien, 1984 (probably).
When I finally recovered enough to look at the remaining shrapnel of the can opener—I was incredulous. I thought of the iron mine the metal had been extracted from. The toil and back-breaking industry involved mining ore from the earth and transporting it to a rendering facility to turn it into workable steel.
Factories. Blistering furnaces. Dark, imposing machinery and the rape of natural resources—before it could be transferred to massive distribution centers, shipping sheets of metal from port to port, around the world, upon massive freight ships—cruising around the world, navigating harsh weather and averting around the territory of covetous pirates looking to exploit the raw value of these and other goods. A tapestry of supply chain webs connecting industry with commerce spanning the globe, influencing the lives of millions if not billions of people—just to transport steel to a manufacturing facility, somewhere in this wide world, to be processed further from base material to a refined tool.
There, it becomes a can opener—fed through more machinery, under the scrupulous eye of watchful factory workers, paid mere pennies a day—to assert the quality of the product they are producing. The product is gathered into massive bins of can openers, full of thousands of can openers just like it, before they are sorted out and packaged into their unique cardboard backing that hangs upon the display peg at the can opener store. Secured in place by one single machine that diligently wraps the can opener and nails it to the crucible of its cardboard backing—before it is sent upon a conveyor belt once again, loaded into boxes, and thrown into the bed of a truck to be driven upon miles of barren highway before, at last, it arrives at a warehouse distribution center.
There, the can opener has no name—no individual identity. It lies in wait, in the darkness, with its brothers and sisters—in confinement until it loses all concept of time. Day and night pass again and again, without end, until finally an order is placed. A can opener store, somewhere in the world, needs more! More can openers! Send us more! We've sold everything we have—but the masses are demanding more! More can openers! More can openers!
Off the box goes—once again loaded onto a freight truck and transported on its winding journey to the can opener store in need. In the air, over land, across the sea—someday, even, dare we even hope, into space!—before a cross-eyed man with a growth on his nose that may be cancerous working in the shipping and receiving center of the can opener store receives the parcel and opens the box of product.
He is the first, in weeks, to gaze upon the piles of can openers, ready to be heaped upon the masses that have cans in need of opening. He receives the individual items in inventory and verifies the amount matches the invoice—before a lackey is tasked with stocking the can openers on the store shelves.
Out the box is pushed, on a cart, through the store, to the aisle—as the lackey, burdened with debt and need for capital, dutifully loads each can opener onto the hook, careful that each is displayed so as to catch the eye of shoppers passing by.
That's where I entered the story. The life's journey of this can opener. Naïve as I was, in my need for a can opener, I foolishly thought this would be the answer to my black olive problems. Little did I know that this can opener's path would end without having accomplished its purpose, even once! And it wasn't as though the can opener had just broken a little. It nearly disintegrated into dust in my hand!
How many people did it take to produce this can opener?
How much money went into the infrastructure that could make its assembly possible?
How much time had gone into creating the network of supply chains that brought this can opener into my possession that day?
Only for it to not even work, once.
No lie, I took my can of black olives outside and beat the ever-loving hell out of it with a rock like a caveman. By the time I was finished, what I was left with was a salty, briny mush of olive flesh that I could pick at amid brittle shards of tin and suck off my fingers.
But at least it was reliable. At least it was handy. At least it was free, and at least it made me the arbiter of my own need for black olives.
I threw my demolished can into the recycling bin, and put down my rock outside. Who knows, I will likely need it again, soon.
I went inside and stood in post-traumatic stress, attempting to come to terms with the enormity of failure I had witnessed.
That was yesterday. Today, I decided to write this recount of the episode.
Rest assured, I will be sending this letter to the can opener's customer service inbox.
I shudder to think about the journey these words will go on in the fullness of time, and what this message's ultimate end will be.
.jpg)
Comments
Post a Comment