So a friend of mine was telling me about this one strange thing his wife does. Whenever they get a gift of *food* and ONLY food (eg like a basket of cheese and crackers) she immediately goes about dividing it EXACTLY in half. "this is my part of the cheddar, this is yours" he isn't bothered about it just a little confused.
She told him. "If you had siblings you'd understand."
I suggested he may eat all the cheese and not notice.
Can those with siblings speak on this? Are you traumatized?
@futurebird At our house it was my dad & his "only 1 kind of jelly can be open at a time" and since we weren't well-off he bought HUGE jars of jelly. Grape for months.
When my middle sister grew up, the very first thing she did when she got her own place was buy 2 jars of jelly and open them both.
Yeah. My parents would only let me use like two of the scissors and hid the nice ones and wouldn't buy the scissors I wanted as a gift because "you have scissors" (even told other people not to get them for me since I had them already)
They came over one day and noticed that I have a big vase and it's full of every kind of scissor, every color and size...
"so, that really was a big deal I guess" my mom said ... I hadn't even really noticed the connection. But it WAS.
Let your kid use scissors or they may grow up with a scissors scarcity mentality.
They are just strange art scissors from the 80s. They are not very practical but they are fun.
Listen. What if you needed to cut something and you couldn't find the right scissors!? It would be horrible... so horrible...
waking from a nightmare in a cold sweat because you needed scissors and there were none in the house... the horror.
Oo I love the protractor scissors. Never seen those before.
Our scissors kept disappearing for years. When we moved out we found 9 pairs of them in our kid's room, behind the furniture, under the bed, in the closet...
A wise child ...
They are "art scissors" from the 80s just designed to be playful and fun.
You don’t use the cut/up method.
You are the cur/up method
@WesternInfidels @futurebird @epicdemiologist We've always enough scissors to go around... but tape measures, boxcutters, and Scotch tape? Never could find them when we needed them.
We now keep a measuring tape and boxcutter in nearly every room. We try to do that for Scotch tape dispensers but those darn things have legs. For months we're down to one dispenser and then five of them show up at the same time in the kitchen or bathroom or someplace really dumb.
@kim @futurebird @epicdemiologist
My mum was a nurse and is a seamstress-by-hobby. She cannot bear rubbish scissors.
When we were growing up, we always had loads of pairs of scissors in the house, that worked. If they didn't (and couldn't be sharpened) they were binned. We knew not to use sewing scissors on paper (mum would be v cross).
As a kid with hand impairments, mum bought me accessible-scissors. I was the ONLY kid with decent scissors in the room.
We have many scissors here too.
@futurebird @epicdemiologist
As far as I knew, there was only one pair of scissors ever in the house I grew up in. Finding them when they were needed a frequent source of drama, sturm, und drang.
It remains a thing of family legend how my sister, who was really into sewing, painstakingly saved up her babysitting money (allowances were not a thing in our household) until she could buy herself a pair of proper dressmaker's shears - and then my father, unable to locate the communal family scissors, took the dressmaker's shears out of my sister's sewing box and used them to cut fiberglass cloth.
I have a pair of scissors in every room of my house, two in the kitchen, three (each for a different purpose) in my own sewing box, and one more that lives in the box of gift wrap.
Shower your kids with scissors, folks.
There were four pairs of scissors in our house and it always baffled me. There were more pens and pencils than you could count... there were many books and notebooks. But the idea of having more scissors just didn't compute for my parents.
I remember being at "SAM'S Club" as a tween and there was a set of like 8 cheap, but sharp scissors for 15 bucks, which was more in the 90s but not... "so much money"
IDK.
It was strange.
Decadence beyond our wildest dreams!
@futurebird @Gorfram @epicdemiologist
there was never any shortage of scissors in my family house, but my Dad (who always did a lot of DIY) would buy his own shears and cutting tools for any gnarly stuff (which in the 70s included aluminium mesh, used to patch up holes in the wing (fender) of his classic Mini van (these were prone to rust)
At work I get my own cutting tools rather than use the office scissors for unsuitable items (such as cable) but if I order them online whoever signs for the parcel gets carded (as its the law in my country). And you then need a pair of scissors, sidecutters or knife to open the packaging they are supplied in..
@Gorfram @futurebird @epicdemiologist
Anything with a point or blade - if its an in person purchase they take a look at you and if you look >18 and not like a wannabe gangster they don't bother to card you, but for mail order there's an electronic check on purchase (normally done via a credit reference agency as they can confirm you are >18) and another one when the package is delivered (as there was a problem with folk ordering large knives online they subsequently used in violent crimes)
@vfrmedia @futurebird @epicdemiologist
(joke follows)
See? That's just the kind of thing you get when you don't let everybody run loose with guns & assault rifles all over the place.
(joke precedes)
@vfrmedia Did I learn at some point that folding knives with lockblades are restricted in the UK because they could be used to cause harm?
Contrast to the US where pocket knives with lockblades are sold as a safety feature to prevent harm.
(Don't want the blade folding over on your fingers when you're getting all stabby, right?)
@DanielMReck they are not completely banned for sale, you just have to prove you are >18 when buying them and can't normally carry around larger knives in the street unless you have a good reason for doing so (such as for work). Only the knives listed below are banned outright.
If I'm carrying anything with points or blades in the car (and I do have valid reason to have them for work) they are in my kit bag or tool box (usually in the boot (trunk)) or the rear seat, this shows you aren't keeping them to use as a weapon during a road rage incident..
@vfrmedia @DanielMReck
"In Scotland, you’re allowed to sell 16 and 17 year olds cutlery and kitchen knives."
Those wild Scots!!!
@leadegroot @futurebird @Gorfram @epicdemiologist
As a person who lives in a household of disappearing scissors, I have purchased at least four Costco 8 packs (or larger) of scissors and they've all been more than decent. Seems like it's a different brand each time, but good quality.
We have 3 of these left, and I quite like them. I'll be sad when they're gone.
I suddenly have the urge to send texts to my family of me holding like five scissors fanned out like a wad of cash with more scissors scattered around like some kind of scissors drug lord.
@aSweetGentleman @futurebird @epicdemiologist
I was thinking about scissors-related folklore.
There's a Chinese superstition that dropping a pair of scissors brings bad luck. In "The Joy Luck Club," someone knocks over a whole table stacked with scissors; and her luck promptly goes straight to hell.
An Irish superstition holds that, if someone gives you a blade as a gift, you must give them a coin (at least a small one); or else the friendship might be cut short. (That's just a blade, though - I suppose for scissors, you'd have to give them two coins.)
In Greek/Roman mythology, the third of The Three Sisters of Fate cuts the thread representing a person's life - with, of course, scissors.
@aSweetGentleman @futurebird @epicdemiologist
Wikipedia can tell you not only how to curse someone* with a pair of scissors, but also how to sleep well despite being cursed.
*under certain rather specific circumstances
Ssssss! Has he apologized to your sister yet?
@clew @futurebird @epicdemiologist
Nee-ope. They were scissors, and they were in his house; and he therefore held that there was no reason why he might not have been entirely within his rights.
My mom robbed the grocery budget to buy Sis a new pair, which she *hid*, very carefully; and only brought out when she needed to cut something out of fabric. (And then the rest of the family had two! pairs of scissors in the household.)
Within a year or two, my sister & my mom were working on ways for her to escape living in that house with having to actually run away from home.
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