the utensil that launched a blog

This is a lettuce knife. Its purpose, as one would guess, is simply to cut lettuce. Genius, right? Um, not really.

You see, most (all?) of us already own something that does a fine job of cutting lettuce and it's called a knife. Now, this knife I speak of can also cut other things (say, a tomato or a hunk of cheese or my finger as I'm cutting limes for the gin and tonics) and is not saddled with a modifier though we could, for the sake of clarity, call it an All Purpose Cutting Knife. But let's not.

Now, I hear you out there, screaming in cyberspace, that the lettuce knife is useful! It really helps when you want to cut some of your iceberg lettuce and save the rest because the remaining piece won't brown in the refrigerator! It's great because you can put it in the dishwasher! It's cheap! What's not to love?!?!

(all arguments in favor of lettuce knife taken from online reviews - I'm not making this crap up!)

Besides the fact that your use of exclamation points is super tedious (yes, they're your exclamation points, I can absolutely hear them) your arguments don't convince. First, iceberg lettuce. Really? Iceberg lettuce? OK, fine. I admit, it can be used deliciously but still, if you want actual nutrients from your lettuce try something a little more substantive like a mesclun mix or some spinach for your salads. If you must continue with the iceberg (or romaine for that matter - what would a Caesar salad be without it?) and you simply CANNOT eat the whole head in one sitting (that would be approximately equivalent to drinking one of your recommended glasses of water per day, I believe) then how about just tearing off a few pieces and thus avoiding the whole ugly browning issue?

Dishwasher safe? Yeah, because it takes so long and is so hard to clean your knife after using it to cut lettuce.

Fine, it's a cheap gadget that some people find useful. Renee M. Duguay of Pawcatuck, CT gives the OXO brand lettuce knife five stars on Amazon.com (she also really loves Planters brand spicy trail mix and the TV show Monk) but I still think it's mindless consumerism at its worst. Sure, there are a billion stupid things that have absolutely no purpose (looking at you, Archie McPhee) except to help keep landfills full, but this thing is actually marketed as something that's a real must have for cooks. Must have? Must have lost your mind (zing!) to think about getting one of these.

And, just to be clear, I don't really have a problem with useless crap per se. If it makes people giggle to own squirrel underpants (http://www.mcphee.com/items/11884.html) then so be it. Just don't try to sell me stupid crap while trying to convince me that it's something I need.