There are few things that invite my feelings of inadequacy more beseechingly than an electric can opener.

It is a device manufactured for the purpose of mental incapacitation, probably devised by the Confederate soldiers sometime in the 1860's as a torture tactic. The bane lives on here in Yankee country. The old Union boys couldn't resist a challenge, it seems.

My parents' countertop model calls to me as I cradle a can of beans against my bosom. My memory screams at me, "THE SILVERWARE DRAWER! GET THE MANUAL TRINKET FROM THE SILVERWARE DRAWER! TURN RIGHT! RIGHT! NO, NOT STRAIGHT! RIGHT! RIGH—" but it is useless. I saddle up to the powered mechanism and give it a go. Every. Single. Time.

And, as I wince at the unique pitch of scraping metal, the satanic device growls at me. In a low, demonic-laced, guttural cry comes, "ARRRRAGHAAHHHHAGH!" which clearly delineates nightmarish consequences of my continuance of the present act. I am too gutless to do anything but surrender.

I do not mind being inept at certain tasks...I do mind being inept at certain tasks at which my father is quite competent. It just isn't fair. I am the one who is trying to bring technology into his household—maybe even introduce him to the twenty-first century—and yet, he is the one who can master the can opener when I cannot.

It is the family joke. They hear the mechanic rasp of poorly engineered can opening and laugh. "Go help your daughter," Mom implores, laughing hard enough to inhibit breathing. Dad comes out in his swaggering know-it-all...ness, and I fling the device away from my form as though it has bitten me. I reach for the manual can opener and get the job done correctly as I mumble unkind character remarks beneath my breath.

Knowing this history, is it really any wonder that I am quite nearly romantically involved with my aunts' electric-can-opener-less kitchen and the smooth-edge handheld can opener that lives there?