I've Been Smucked!
Feb 16 '09
The Bottom Line If it ain't broke, don't fix it!
A new word has entered our family lexicon:
smuck \sm-UK\ [deriv. Smucker's] 1. v. To modify a household item in a manner which makes it more difficult or annoying to use. Hey, smuck this spatula into something useless, will ya? 2. n. An item which has been smucked. Dang, look at all the smuck on these shelves! smuckify To smuck in the extreme. smucking adj. The act of creating smuck. adv. Usually considered vulgar.
To be smucked is not a disaster. A SNAFU is of a far, far higher order than a smuck. In the troubles of the world, if a broken fingernail is a 1 and nuclear holocast is a 10, a smuck ranks about 0.6.
A smuck is annoying, in the way a mosquito which never bites, or a single stray hair that blows across your nose inside your motorcycle helmet is annoying.
JM Smucker Company, which actually produces several jams and jellies I really like, has developed a smucking useless jar. The label states, "this convenient plastic jar was specially designed to be lightweight, nonbreakable, and easy to handle!"
This new piece of high-tech annoyance is carefully designed to keep you from accessing the last of the jam. The molded-in handles, strength ridges, and decorative detailing combine with the narrow mouth to make it impossible to move a large spoon around the champaigne-bottle-like bottom. The bottle is deeper than my small spoons are long, and the mouth is far too small to get my hand into it.
So, if I want the last of the jelly, I have to take the "convenient" jar and set it in a pan of warm water, melt the jelly, pour it into another container, and then wait for it to re-set so it can be spread on my peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
But that is just one item. Why invent a whole new word for just one item?
Because it is NOT one item. It is a corporate mindset infecting American products! "If a product works well, mess with it until it does not."
I was very happy with plain old toothpaste with a screw top. Now, the screw top on my formerly favorite toothpaste has a flip-lid. So, rather than a nice clean tube of toothpaste with a secure lid that I can squeeze from the bottom up, rolling the tube to make a tidy, ever-smaller item. . . NOW I must contend with a nasty, sticky, slimy, leaky flip-top that pops open during the night or when I roll the tube. Instead of a shiny tube sitting on a shiny shelf, I have a nasty mess sitting in a puddle of congealed paste.
My dear husband, seeing how annoyed I was becoming with the Smucker's Concord Grape Jelly, net wt 48 oz (3 lb), handed me a small, slim rubber spatula. GREAT! I dug into the jelly with relief only to have the spatula skitter about, directed away from the jelly by the domed bottom of the jar and the "jelly entrapment ridge" half an inch up from the bottom.
In ancient times, when I learned to cook, a rubber spatula consisted of a slim wooden handle with a soft rubber scraper attached to one end.
The new and improved spatula has a rigid plastic scraper - about as flexible as a tire iron - attached to a slim, whippy handle - about as flexible as a licorice stick.
I was smucked.
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Epinions.com ID:
hularider
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Member: Leilehua Yuen
Location: Hilo, Hawaii, USA
Reviews written: 70
Trusted by: 8 members
About Me:
HulaRider is an author, artist, and educator who specializes in Hawaiian culture and arts.
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