The Can Opener

The Placekicker of the Kitchen

It serves just one essential purpose. But nothing else can do what it does. It’s the placekicker of the kitchen. The master key to sweet corn and beans. One of the most simple and timeless pieces of machinery in all the land. But for a tool that unlocks the non-perishable, I find that can openers are incredibly perishable. The first one I remember purchasing, instead of it simply appearing out of thin air, was about 4 years ago. I bought it at Sandune Liquor in Playa del Rey for seven dollars. It wasn’t even a year before an unruly can of Progresso snapped its singular gear and sealed its fate. I bought my second can opener from Ralphs or Vons or wherever. Who cares? That one broke just months later as well. There was then a period of my life when I avoided soup and tuna altogether. I don’t speak about this time very much. But in the rare circumstance I was simply too desperate not to eat the canned tuna in the back of my pantry, I’d stab it with a sharp knife in a real Dateline, murder of passion type of way. Eventually though, the time came for a third can opener. I decided to level up for this one. Twelve dollars at HomeGoods. Would you believe it? But this can opener broke too. Maybe this is just an annual purchase, I thought. If I live to 80, I’ll have spent around $800 on can openers in my life. I figured that was depressing but fine…So I returned to the HomeGoods/Marshalls this Sunday, during the 31 minutes I had while my clothes were in the washing machine, for a fourth can opener in four years. With HomeGoods/Marshalls just six minutes away, I believed 31 minutes was more than enough time to complete the now annual purchase. But such as anything I try to accomplish during the 31 minutes of my washer’s cycle, my trip to HomeGoods ate up an afternoon. Those clothes didn’t see the dryer until damn sunset. I know exactly how it happened. I was held up in the parking garage as confused shoppers drove the wrong way, blocking all traffic. Once in the store, my direct route to the item was flanked and disrupted by sale-hunting zombies as they moved aimlessly with a mountain of Nautica khakis and polos in their arms. At checkout, I waited in a rather short line for far too long as each customer ahead of me purchased enough Nautica khakis and polos to perform a hostile takeover of the Nautica corporation. Mind you also, this is a Marshalls/HomeGoods checkout. A corn maze of iPhone cases and artisanal kettle corn, where you must fight for your life to not spend another $8.99. As I sat there, squeezing my new can opener like it was a grip trainer and resisting the urge to buy a shower speaker, all while listening to children scream and cry in a way only children will if they know you have damp clothes sitting idly in a community washing machine - I finally realized it. There’s no reason to not buy this malarky online. It would’ve been at my door the next day. Maybe even that night.

So I’ve come to terms with it. The American box store is extinct. Dead in the water and past the point of resuscitation. Admittedly, I am one of the last to admit this. Old news by now. I think I’ve equated shopping online with some form of voluntary isolationism in a world that’s increasingly anti-social. But our post-COVID retail experience has proven to be far worse. Either it’s my 31 minute turned two hour fiasco at Marshalls/Homegoods, the one box store without an online marketplace, or it’s a visit to their struggling superstore competitors - understaffed, understocked, and somehow more isolating than shopping behind a screen. Either way, the box store experience is near purgatorial. That is if Jason Mraz is played for 24 hours straight in purgatory. And just so we’re clear, I’m not convinced he isn’t. So, I’ve officially bent the knee to our global commerce Unc, Jeff Bezos. I’ll buy my cheap, flimsy, and unintentionally temporary home goods…online.

Then again, why should the can opener - the placekicker of the kitchen - be cheap, flimsy, and unintentionally temporary? Maybe it’s more akin to the chef’s knife or cast iron pan…far too useful and too beautifully simple of an idea to keep buying in its worst manufactured form. Two blades, a gear, and a crank. That’s it. Why not invest in a can opener as non-perishable as the canned food it opens? The brick-and-mortar one-stop shop will inevitably die. After all, this is America. My grandfather’s linen store was put out of business by the superstores my father bought my sheets from. The same superstores that now play Jason Mraz for absolutely nobody.

But real tools are worth the errand. They’re worth what I initially feared would die at the hands of e-commerce - a trip to a store where someone knows what they’re selling. One where your time is reflected in the value of your purchase. A purchase that will be placed in zero order histories because you’ll remember exactly when and why you bought it. A wise salesman once told me… Give a man a can opener from HomeGoods and he’ll eat soup for a day. Teach a man how to appreciate the craftsmanship of quality goods from quality sellers and he’ll eat soup for a lifetime.

Unfortunately, I’ll have to wait for the perfect can opener. I stayed in line and bought that one from Homegoods. I thought this all up a few days after. But not to worry. It’ll only be one year or 32 cream of broccolis until I’ll need a new one.