I have an obsession with tongs.
And it's all my mom's fault.
Years ago, like 25 years ago, when asked what she wanted for a birthday gift, my mom had a simple request: new tongs. Her's were wearing out and she couldn't find any shaped the way she likes. She wanted the end to "point down" so it could more easily grab and turn bacon.
Whatever mom.
I took off for Target, bought two pairs of tongs, one for me and one for her, shipped them off. She acted like I had give her the best gift ever. But it is a very mom trait thing to do to -- act like it's the best gift ever -- so I didn't appreciate the enormity of how stuning this gift would turn out to be.
This got me thinking about tongs, and their shapes. Boy if she wasn't right. When you're holding your tongs over the top of a frying pan, the most ergonomical position was to have the end of the tongs point down. The other tongs I had would make me bend my wrist funny, or just wouldn't grab food the way I wanted. Soon, I had thrown out all tongs that didn't have the mom-approved shape to them and all was well in my food-turning world.
For about 15 years.
The little rivet in the center wears out, causing the tongs to be all skitty-whampish, leading to not-so-good food turning capabilities.
I've been searching the isles of Target, Wal-mart, K-mart, the Dollar Store for a couple of years now. Just as in the way of the banana clip saga, the "correct" pair of tongs had disappeared off of store shelves. I had hope that since Goody banana clips returned after a decade hiatus, so would my tongs.
In the mean time, I have amassed quite a collection. The springy one off to the left, two of those were bought in a moment of pure desparation. I know you're not supposed to hate things, but I hate them. Their hours are numbered in my drawer. The wooden one at the bottom, Oh that was a perfect gift request from Ashley after I saw her's. They're salad tongs from Pampered Chef, and fold back the opposite way flat for storage. Love Them. And that's no gratuitous mom acting like it was the perfect gift, it really was. Then there's the red handled ones that I got "just in case" because at least it was shaped like a square and so you kind of could get the usage shape I was going for. But they didn't last too long, because once on yet another look-see through Targe gadget wall, I found the twofer pair, one shaped wrong, but hallelujah, one shaped correctly. What would I do with the extra wrong shaped one? Being converted as I was to the only true type of tongs to use, I could not pass the wrong ones off to somebody in good conscience.
I even went on Ebay and bid on a pair of 'vintage' tongs. My limit was $5 and they went for $7.50. Tongs are a serious business, folks.
