Among Us!

One of the joys of blogging is hearing from people who read my blog.

One lady recently emailed me, after reading my post about needing a lid popper to open jars, in order to avoid injuring my wrist, which seems very prone to injury these days.

The woman who wrote to me lives in my part of the country, but (to my knowledge) we've never met.

The little tool I was writing about is like a large bottle opener with a different-sized hook on each end. The hooks are used for popping metal lids of different heights.

(I was told about the opener by a friend whose husband used to work at Lee Valley, a local tool store that has a popular online store as well. My friend loaned me hers for week. It worked on a lot of jars, so I purchased my own.)

I'm getting more adept at using it. Once the vacuum seal is popped, the lid usually opens easily.

The woman who wrote to me uses it too. She wrote:"The Jar Opener was invented by a wonderful next door neighbour... [who]... died last year but his widow is still receiving royalties. I owned his opener before I knew the connection. 

He was from England. He was very clever, creative and had a twinkle in his eye. I believe he lived in your neighbourhood before [moving to mine in] ... about 2003."

It's interesting to hear that there are inventors among us - sometimes even neighbors - people who see a need and set out to fix it...

Necessity is the mother of invention.

I wonder whose necessity made this local man invent - then patent and sell - this handy jar opener that is now so useful to many. But I'm glad he did!