The tiny scissors I keep for nothing but cutting thread
I have this one pair of embroidery scissors, very small, very old, I found them in my yiayia's sewing box after she died, probably from the 50s. I don't embroider. I don't sew. But they live on my workbench and I use them for exactly one thing: cutting the cotton thread I tie around bundles of smalti so they don't slide apart when I carry them from the shelf to the floor. Nothing else. If I need to cut string or paper or anything, I use something else. These scissors just do this one job.
It's stupid. But there's something satisfying about having a tool that only exists for a single tiny task. Like a little ritual object. Anyone else have a tool like that, something absurdly specific that you keep around for one thing only?
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i get this completely. i have a palette knife i bought for €3 at a flea market and it's got a bend in the tip that makes it useless for mixing paint. but it's perfect for scraping dried acrylic off glass palettes. i won't use anything else for that. it's not even a good knife. it's just the one that does that thing.
there's something about having a tool that's been narrowed down to one purpose. like it's more itself than a multi-purpose thing could ever be. your yiayya's scissors sound like they know exactly what they're for.
That's exactly it, it's more itself. A bent flea market knife that found its purpose scraping paint, that's a good life for a tool.
The scissors belonged to her and they sat in a box for years after she died because I couldn't throw them out. Now they sit on my bench and I pick them up once, twice a week. It's like they're still hers but they've got a job again. Makes me feel less guilty about keeping them, honestly.