Goodbye, Garlic Crusher

I retired my garlic crusher today. In a strange twist of fate, I actually crushed IT. For a time the metal components had been gouging determinedly at each other, but today they misaligned severely enough to warp and bend the entire thing right out of purpose.

A sad occurrence indeed, for this particular garlic crusher had been with me for the last, let me see … why, nigh on three years! Perhaps it is unusual for me to know that. You’d probably find, should you go about asking, that people generally do not recall the exact time and place that they acquired their garlic crusher. It is even less likely said crusher would then feature in a ripping good yarn, but I guess mine is the exception to this very specific rule.

The reason I recall so clearly how I came to possess it, is because I stole it. I was renting a furnished apartment in Melbourne, where I was doing a stand-up comedy show. Normally these places only stock the basics, but the kitchen drawers of this particular residence held a surprising number of non-essential extras, like a spatula, an ice cream scoop, and significantly, a garlic crusher.

I had my eye on the crusher right from the start. It was quite classy, and I had no crusher back home to call my own. How, I reasoned, would I EVER get in even the REMOTEST bit of trouble for taking it? Would the tenant after me discover it missing and call the front desk?

Furious Tenant: You call this place furnished? There isn’t even a way to crush garlic!
Front Desk: Sir, I … I’m not sure how this has happened. My best explanation is that the previous tenant has, well, let us not prematurely execute an innocent man here, but he may have made off with it. If so, I assure you this will soon become an urgent police matter.
Furious Tenant: That’s all well and good, but what the HELL am I supposed to do with my uncrushed garlic in the meantime? Grind it under a chair leg?

Nay, it was the perfect crime. Ha ha! The sheer thrill! And ever after the crusher has been my fond companion, reminding me how ruthless I can be when pressed. I told you it was a cracking good tale, did I not? I only with I’d had the moxie to make off with the ice cream scoop as well.

Thus it is with great sadness that I consign the garlic crusher to the garbage bin, to sleep with the fish-heads.

Goodnight, sweet garlic crusher. I can only pray that, in the garbage truck which ferries you on to the next place, you get crushed up with other discarded garlic crushers, into little garlic crusher bits.