Thursday, March 31, 2022 The Crafting Friend, The Dangers of Hot Glue, and the Not-So Amazing Eggstractor

As you can tell by the title, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover, so let’s get going.

If you like doing crafty things, find yourself a crafting friend like mine. We’ll call her “Barb.” (Mostly because that’s her name, but it looks more mysterious to have it in quotes.) I found a photo of some cards that I liked and sent it to Barb with the comment that I thought we could figure out how to make them. The next thing I knew, we had ourselves a card-making date with her supplying nearly all the materials from her own crafting shelves (and she even made a trip to JoAnn’s to get additional supplies – above and beyond the call of duty!).

The cards required the use of the hot glue gun. If your fingers began hurting reflexively the moment you read that, it’s a sign that you’ve used one of these handy little torture devices. Hot glue is really a great adhesive except for the fact that it’s impossible to use without burning your fingers and getting strings of the glue all over everything. We were a little worried that at one point we might accidentally glue ourselves together, but managed to avoid that.

Crafting with a friend makes the whole experience more fun. Thanks, Barb!

We didn’t end up using my hot glue gun, but when I got it out to bring it just in case, I was flooded with memories of the Amazing Eggstractor, the box of which now houses my glue gun.

My parents-in-law bought this for me over 20 years ago, having succumbed to the allure of it on the shopping network. I was thrilled, having many times been frustrated by trying to peel hard-boiled eggs and ending up with something that looked like it was trying to be a hard-boiled egg but which had lost a lot of its parts. As it says on the box, “It peels eggs for you!” Count me in.

I boiled up the first batch according to the instructions and eagerly put the first egg on the little stand provided. I pressed down on the accordion-style thingy and had to exert a fair amount of pressure. Finally the egg shot through…or at least part of it did. The yolk had parted company with the white. Probably just a fluke, I figured. I put the next one in and tried again. The egg came out at about Mach 2 and went flying around the kitchen, ricocheting off various cupboards before coming to a resting place that it took me awhile to find.

I never could get that thing to perform as promised. I gave it away ( ha ha!) but kept the box, which turned out to be the most useful part of it.

I’ll probably eggstract this post in the morning. Thar she blows!