Common household items that are pointless...

[ilovebruuuceandbags]

Ok, the ruined designer washing up bowl which has popped up all over again has just prompted me to ask…what is the point of having a washing up bowl? We used to have one, then moved house and now don't bother with one. We just use the sink, which, to be honest, is much easier for washing up the dishes. It was a revelation!

What common 'essentials' do most of us have, which actually aren't essential at all?

I used to have a gadget that made boiled eggs square. Utterly pointless

George foreman, the grill can be put through the dishwasher where as the GF can't.

My Ex P's really wanky friends gave him an authentic Ethiopian melon baller as a present. Because balls of melon are really big in Ethiopia . It was massive and took up half a cupboard in our tiny kitchen. Ex P refused to agree it was ridiculous

Can't believe a PP is pooh poohing the sandwich toaster! Again, that is on high rotation in our house ostensibly for the little people but DH is obsessed and will be in there making a cheese and ham toastie whenever I have my back turned

Fondue set - got one for our wedding 13 years ago and still haven't used it, though have lugged it through several house moves for some reason (and I'm a chucker-outer).

The people who owned our house before us had no oven. Not even a space for one. To be fair they're not a massive priority in Dutch kitchens but not to have one at all is unusual. I've been living without an oven for 3.5 years with a small combi microwave.

I now have 2 ovens - finally! It's joyful.

I do love rice cookers. Am currently on a self-catering holiday and have bought ours with us. It's a posh Japanese one (gift from the PILs) and it is marvelous.

I don't have a sandwich toaster - I butter the outside of toasted sandwiches and cook them gently in a frying pan.

I used my GU dishes as ashtrays when we had our last BBQ and a lot of our "arty" friends came (Ie; poor because they wont get proper jobs and spend their gig money on fags and booze!).

I've just googled grape scissors. I assumed they were for cutting grapes in half for babies- a concept I only came across on mumsnet- but no, they are for snipping off a small bunch and for conveying a grape to your mouth without touching it. Who knew?

DH has just broken one of my only two Gü dishes.
Might have to buy more puddings now.

My mum bought me an iron when I moved out. I haven't used it yet. That was 24 years ago.

Grape scissors are not useless, just unfashionable. I think it looks horrible when you have some grapes in a bowl and half are picked off leaving a nasty plucked skeleton. Snip some off with the handy grape scissors and lo, the bunch stays looking pretty.

Can't stop giggling whenever someone mentions salt and pepper mills with lights

If you dont have a dish drainer, where do you dry the dishes. If you just put them on the drainboaard they sit in puddles.

Please dont tell me you actually dry and put them away promptly. That would just be weird.

Momagain, the dishwasher dries the dishes. The only thing I wash up are wooden spoons, and the odd pan. Oh and I rinse stuff like baked bean tins before chucking them in the recycling. So for me a dish drainer would be defo surplus to requirements.

Definitely bread bin. Mine is full of plastic bags to be reused.

People have egg separators?
Egg timers. I just use the timer on my oven (it can work independently from the oven itself) or phone.

The microwave is essential here: heat up milk for breakfast, heat up leftovers (we have lots of leftovers, as it's only me and DS and I cook for at least two meals each time), quickly boil potatoes, quickly do sweet potatoes.

Agree with salad spinner. Not sure why and how I ended up buying one. Must have been with a shopping need.

I want a thing that makes square boiled eggs!

Has anybody mentioned doilies yet? Every time I see one - which is thankfully a rare occurrence these days - I have to physically restrain myself from putting them in a bin. Pointless dust magnets IMO.

And china hand ornaments. They're just so creepy....

but the dish drainer is needed for all the plastic containers that don't dry properly in the dishwasher.

I have a thing that makes boiled eggs into the shape of little teddies, and another that does fish shaped ones.

But they're not pointless, they're the polar opposite of pointless. Their point is clear - they turn boiled eggs into other shapes.

If anyone has got one of these they definitely win the prize for most pointless household thing.

although now I really want one

I was right wasn't I when I said 90% of what's in Lakeland Plastics.

There's stuff on here I've never heard of or dreamt off. It's like finding out about other people's interesting sex lives.

Oh I don't have one of those, Trying - but I did read on here about spiralizers and want one. I don't low-carb or owt, just liked it.

Luckily I then promptly forgot my spiral needs.

Some wooden "tweezers" bought from Lakeland for removing toast from the toaster. WTF was I thinking?!

Toast tweezers - check

That spiralizer is brilliant.