2-for-Tuesday: Starfrit Tonglite
- This thing has a tong-thing, a spatula-thing, a bottle opener-thing, a serrated edge-thing, a scraping edge-thing, and a flashlight-thing. That’s six things in one thing!
- And you get two of these things!
- THAT’S, LIKE, TWELVE THINGS!
- Model number: SRFT092039 (Although, wouldn’t it be funny if the model number changed just slightly each time you used a different feature? No, this wouldn’t be funny, you say? We’ve been thinking too much about model numbers, you say? Well, isn’t that just SO RUDE of you!)
It's not Frankenstein; it's actually Frankenstein's multi-tool
You have found it: the quintessential Father’s Day gift. Why? Because it involves grilling. Also, more importantly, you have no idea exactly what it is. And there is nothing that a dad loves more than to figure things out and solve problems, especially the simple ones that don’t actually exist.
Hand a Starfrit BBQ Multi-Tool to a dad (any dad will do; it doesn’t matter if he’s your dad, a grandparent, or the father of your children) and watch as he studies it, confused, perhaps even irritated. See his blank non-responsive face as you discuss its many features: its tong, its spatula, its serrated edge, its bottle opener, and even its flashlight. When you offer some potential uses, he will nod in a noncommittal way, letting you know he has heard none of them. And when he mutters, “Thank you,” it will come out perplexed and unimpressed.
Now comes the waiting. The dad will likely not use the Starfrit BBQ Multi-Tool for some time. Many occasions for grilling will come and go without its surfacing. Then, suddenly, it will emerge and he will never be at the grill without it. He will tell you about some of the innovative uses he has devised for it. These uses will perhaps be the same ones you proposed to him some time ago, but this will go unacknowledged. He will not speak with gratitude. If anything, he will speak with a prideful inflection that implies this was not a gift at all, but an obstacle, one which he has, thanks to his own ingenuity, been able to overcome.
But The true acceptance of the Starfrit BBQ Multi-Tool as a good Father’s Day gift will come much later, perhaps even years after its giving, when the dad manages to finally destroy it. This destruction will be blamed on an ancillary tool, or someone other than the dad. If fault can not be so easily transmuted, the dad will speak of the event in the passive voice. At this point, the dad will have grown so reliant on it that he must buy himself a new one. Perhaps he will buy the same model. More likely, though, he will find a slightly different model, the benefits of which (and thus, in turn, the shortcomings of the model you purchased originally) he will make abundantly clear.
This is how you know your Father’s Day gift is a success.
