Results: The One Where We Talk About "The Good Scissors"

We grow up in a privileged home- at least when it came to scissors. At any one time, there were at least three pair (pairs?) of scissors in our house. Four if you count the pinking shears in Mom's sewing box. Did you grow up with any of the following in your house?

"Those had better not be the Good Scissors!" ranks right up there with "Put shoes on if you're going outside!" and "Where did you have it last?" among the least favorite (and frequently heard) words of my childhood. Were you ever warned away from the Good Scissors?

To understand this protective attitude, one need only to look in the junk drawer in my mother's kitchen. There resided a sad, sad pair of Demoted Good Scissors. They were dull. One blade tip broken. (Possibly by a small boy carving a large Z- the mark of his hero Zorro- on his mom's new coffee table.) Do you remember when Zorro was on tv?

The Demoted Good Scissors were used for anything from clipping coupons to trimming flower stems. Even cutting up the candied fruit for Mom's Applesauce Fruit Cake. And before you ask, she did wash and sterilize them before and after. Anyway. Think of them as the Scissors for All Seasons. Are there scissors in your junk drawer?

Back when Disney's "Zorro" first hit tv screens in 1957 some suburbanites viewed their sewing machine as a status symbol akin to a new car. The Good Scissors were- unlike fancy hubcaps on the new Chevy- more than an accessory. They were a highly valued tool. Hacking through cardboard and popsicle sticks when making school dioramas dulls and ruins the blades. Ask anyone who sews. It's a fact. So, Mom had her reasons. Now, will you promise to leave The Good Scissors alone. Please?