It's not very ex ing 3bunnies!
It was an 'all-in-one corn kerneler 
Er what I hear you cry - what on earth would you need one of those for?
Dmum and her friend started to give each other a little extra Christmas present each year, that came to be known as 'The Guess What'. Exchanged on Christmas Eve every year, it was already a well established tradition by 35 years ago. Amazingly they've never given each other the same thing so that's well over 70 mostly useless very specific gadgets that have been exchanged. But as you can imagine it has become more of a challenge to think of something new each year - thus places like amazon and eBay are becoming good places to look! It's become such a well known tradition amongst their wider circle of friend's that people even bring back weird things they see abroad in the bid to help find something tantalisingly unguessable.
Thesedays most of them live in a bag used for a 'guess the guess what' game. However some have been quite useful and made it into the kitchen drawer. Some things are now considered mainstream (albeit unheard of when bought) or can be found packing out the nether reaches of the Lakeland catalogue (and these days if it's in there then it's no good for the competition, too obvious). Others remain resolutely uber niche and those are the ones that I'm after!
Over the years there have been all sorts of things from turkey twist pins to stitch up the neck of a turkey to stop stuffing falling out, frittatta flippers, pineapple corers, avocado scoop and slices, hot chocolate fritters, hone twist on - twist odd spoons, assorted nut crackers, strawberry huller, tomato decorers, cucumber spiralled and so on. My most favourite of the lot is the 'square boiled egg maker' -a press to put your hot boiled egg into to squeeze it into a cube shape - perfect for the guess what as whoever thinks of the need for a gadget to do that!
Guess what is opened on Christmas eve at the party then answers revealed on new years eve, when they all tended ro be at the same party.
Hence the corn kerneller fitting the bill (I'd just remembered seeing it in a list of useless gadgets during the year - recognised most of the others as already having been guess what participants so thought it was worth looking into. But also why ididnt report it to the thread - didn't think there would be that much demand! (although - anyone doing a foodie hamper - maybe you should also start a tradition of adding a guess what to your hamper each year to give it a different dimension!).
Bet you're sorry you asked now 3bunnies aren't you! but if you're not, I can paste up links to some of the more eclectic things later on.
Oh and no, I have absolutely no idea why handmade bamboo ear picks would be coming up with corn kernellers either!