WINNING CHRISTMAS

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (01-05-23)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

 

     For all of you who made it through Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, Emperor's Birthday (Japan), Yap Constitution Day (Micronesia), Sambisa Memorial Day (Nigeria) and Synaxis of the Mother of God (Greece) and didn't have to buy anybody presents, then congratulations to you. For the rest of us, it's murder trying to think of the perfect gift to give on Christmas, let alone Yap Constitution Day. At this point in my life, it's less important that I get anything I need, or anything useful, or even anything I had no idea how much I needed. I just need to not make a perfect idiot of myself totally misjudging what others need.

     One thing that usually works is to find something for the household that we can really use. Something that my wife will open and say, "WOW! We really needed one of these because the one you bought two years ago turns out to have been a total piece of crap!" She has never ever said that, but I can read between the lines when she says, "WOW! This is PERFECT!" If I hear those words I slump with dejection.

     I knew I was onto something when a commercial came on the television for an "air fryer," and she said, "I know someone who has one of those and she swears by it." And I thought to myself, YES! A gift idea. "Honey when you say, 'swears by it,' that's good right? Because we have a toaster that has an undemanding definition of 'toast,' and every time I'm near it I am swearing." Then I pictured myself smiling the Christmas smile that one can only smile who has evenly fried air. So I went on Amazon to find the perfect one, and much to my dismay, there were approximately 3,000 to choose from. 

     I knew I didn't want a "smart" air fryer, that hooks up to your smart phone, and communicates with all the other appliances, and runs the entire household without you even being present, and before you know it, you haven't lived there for years and nobody noticed it. So I looked around at the different features, and none of them had all the good features at once. 

     I read about 100 of user the comments and reviews, and it was immediately apparent that no one can agree on any facet of an air fryer. Some said you could fry an eight-pound chicken on the rotisserie, and others said, yes, but only if the chicken was short for its height. Another said you should use the rotisserie outside becase it smokes, and apparently has made no effort to quit. There wasn't even a clear consensus on the spelling of "rotisserie." 

     Another buyer wrote a long review, but spent a lot of time evaluating how the unit performed when dehydrating persimmons. I'm not sure I could trust a review of anyone who ate enough dehydrated persimmons to make a studied comparison.

     We needed a new coffee maker too, because our old one doesn't work very well. Come to think of it, our old coffee maker was ME. I need to compare more features. Does it get the coffee hot enough? When I order coffee after dinner at a restaurant I ask the waiter to make it so hot that if I spill it on myself I will sue the place and see that he's fired, and I'm not sure that that is a motivating comment.

     What is the difference between an urn and a carafe? I guess it matters less if you're making coffee than if you're running a crematorium. Also, do I need a frother? The answer is, of course, but I'm not sure for what. Frothing sounds like something they do all the time in Europe, where they wear socks with sandals and nobody says a word about it. Or perhaps in a Disney movie, and then we burst into a beatiful song. It behooves me to find out, because the frother is an extra $40 bucks, plus the new sandals are another $28. 

     Now the holidays have come and gone, and I'm declaring myself the winner of Christmas. I've bought the perfect air fryer, and now I'm inundated with internet ads for air fryers that are even MORE perfect, on the off-chance that I might buy three or four more of them. The coffee maker works pretty well too. It made a funny noise every time I walked over to it, but that turned out to be my knee. What I've learned so far is that once you start frothing things it's tough to stop. Come on over and see for yourself. We're the house with the dog bowl outside that has frothed water in it.