My Kingdom for A Can Opener

This photograph is in the public domain. I sleep better at night knowing that.

I'm going to rant a bit, first by asking a question:

Has anyone, in the past five yars, been able to purchase a can opener that works?

I ask -- obviously -- because we haven't. We've got two can openers upstairs, one just like this one, the other electric. And it's hit and miss as to whether they'll work when we have to open a can.

The hand-crank jobbie is the worst. We've gone through three of them in not too long of a time, probably three or four years. Each time I have to use one of these devices, they end up just mauling the can rather than opening it. I cut my finger on the lid of a can tonight because I had to finish by prying the chewed-up lid off the can with a butterknife.

The electric one is no better. Heaven forbid I push the can against the blade to get I to catch and cut. The blade just folds and the opener makes the can spin merrily while not opening the can at all.

I blame consumers, frankly.

I remember the can openers of my youth -- they always worked. Even I, as a child back then, could count on being able to use one to open a can. I can't do that with my kids these days, because it takes a lot of effort to get one of the stupid things (the can openers, not the kids) to work.

I do blame consumers, because we're all out there looking for the cheapest item. And yes, they can make them cheap. But the problem is, they're cheaply made. The ones we've bought lately are crap. And worse yet, crap is all we can find, because every store we go to now carries the same crappy brands. I'm about ready to go to the kitchen supply store in a nearby city to get a can opener because all of the ones available locally just suck. I know because, over time, we've bought them all. And if the kitchen supply store can't fit the bill, I'll go to the army surplus store and find one the army uses. Certainly they don't allow people who have free access to bayonets and guns put up with crappy can openers.