While waiting in a short line to get to self-checkout at a grocery store, I noticed an item sitting on top of some product display that clearly was not where it belonged. Perhaps someone thought of buying it but decided against doing so and just plopped it down on the nearest flat service. It was a plastic gizmo encased in a plastic container. Of course. The object itself looked unusual in its shape. Then I saw the item’s purpose on its container: a kitchen tool that can cut open an avocado, remove its pit and then slice it.

As someone who eats avacados on a regular basis, I gave a moment’s thought as to how this invention would improve upon my own way of getting the same job done without it. Hmm. Really?, I thought. Did it make cutting open an avocado any easier? How could it?, as I cut one open using a small modestly sharp kitchen knife. Takes maybe 5 seconds. Does it make removing the pit any easier? Again, absolutely not. Thepointy part of this device was no pointier than my modest little knife. Ah, but then it was designed to slice the yummy inside part using its own “slicing fan”. But only after scooping out the yummy stuff. That’s where the engineering of this “3 in 1” tool makes all the difference in the universe: I would have to put my small knife down, then pick up a small spoon, with which I would scoop away. Then back to my knife to slice it up (if I choose to even bother with slicing it at all).

Of course, when I researched this product, it emphasizes how it “safely” gets the yummy part into one’s digestive system. Okay, I have to use a knife and a spoon. This product is both knife and spoon. And pit impaler. 3 in 1? I provide for all three steps using 2 kitchen utensils. So the gizmo very importantly saves on labor washing just one item, not two. However, the 3 in 1 likely takes more time to wash (thoroughly) than a small knife and spoon. It’s somehow safer? If it has a sharp enough pointed part to remove the pit, then it, too, could cut human flesh. But then the “slicing fan” part is plastic and my knife is metal. So, unless anyone using the 3 in 1 is prone to getting a finger in harm’s way while processing the avocado my way, I call it a draw. But there are many people who cut themselves when using sharp objects in the kitchen (beware those Ginzu knives) or the bathroom: ya know, the razor blade used by most civilized humans when facial, leg, groin or arm pit hair is left to its own natural growth. In spite of the” “safety razor” (created in 1762!) accidents still happen.

Okay, then. I now know that with the many inventions designed to make life easier (using “space-age techonolgy!”) this avocado cutter/scooper/slicer is part of that marketing mojo. Hey, aren’t we always happy to find technologies that save us time and toil? Modern washers and driers that have many settings with which to get our dirty ditties and other of our satorial lifestyles ultra clean and smelling April fresh. There are now washer/dryers that get those two steps done in the same drum. Technology has yet to figure out how the machine might also save one the steps of removing dried garments, sorting them and putting them in their place. Too busy inventing that avocado thingy. It is being worked, no doubt. Robotics.

There’s a clear market for comsumers seeking the recent technological advances that make life more manageable–at least here in the USA. Ya know, if we can go to the moon and get back, then anything is possible, no? Do you wear a Fitbit to track your activity level everyday? Wearing “smart glasses” to record as you walk the boulevard? How about an Oura ring? More precise than mood rings, the Oura provides round-the-clock insights into sleep. fitness and stress for wellness. That avocado contraption is in that modern-day milieu of such offerings.

No, I did not buy the avocado miracle working 3 in 1. No fitbit. No smart glasses, either, though I am certainly a smart-ass at times. No rings. My body tells me that it does not want those things on it. I can brag, however, that I have a cutting board that includes a knife sharpener on it. I use it to to sharpen that small knife that frequently cuts and impales my avocados.

That’s space age technolgy in my world.