We are living in a material world ...

"In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love -- they had 500 years of democracy and peace. And what did they produce? The cuckoo clock."
Orson Welles as Harry Lime in Graham Greene's 'The Third man'.

They (the Swiss) produced the cuckoo clock, but also the fondue set.

So, the question in this context is, what is the most absolutely useless item in your household? You know, something you either received as a gift, or that you felt was a 'must-have' during some fleeting moment of materialistic insanity, and has now sat on the shelf in the basement or garage for years, decades even? In a poll taken in the UK (but it could just as easily have been taken here) the answer is the fondue set.

When I got married for the first time, my wife and I received two fondue sets. And, in those days people had fondue parties. You would invite another couple over. You would fire up the fondue burner. You would crack far too many bottles of wine and you would eat and drink for hours and hours. Sometimes you got two fondues going. One with hot oil for cooking meat, shrimp, etc., and one with melted cheese for dipping chunks of bread. If you could muster up a third set (not difficult in those days), you could even do a dessert fondue with melted chocolate and fresh strawberries. It was fun. It was a moment in time. And, as is the case for all things that seemed like a good idea at the time -- it was a good idea at that time -- and seemingly only at that time. We did the fondue thing for a while -- maybe a year, and then the set(s) got put away, never to emerge. I don't know if my ex-wife still has our originals. I've never had any desire to purchase another to make up for the 'loss.'

But, fondue sets were not the only 'flashes in the pan' (as it were). Also topping the list were ice-cream makers (I have one of those. It sits in the garage. It made great ice cream. I never use it. I still eat ice cream.); toasted sandwich makers, and exercise bikes.

Exercise bikes. I had one of those, too. It seemed like a good idea. And, for the first couple of encounters, it was almost fun; a challenge. I would increase the tension to see what I could endure. I would chalk up miles on the sonofabitch, and watch that little odometer go up (ever so slowly). And then that was it. It got boring. It go so excruciatingly boring. I tried variations to ease the boredom. I would read the newspaper while 'riding'. I would watch television, to pass the tedious time. I would chat with my wife. I would do anything I could to keep from focusing on the inane fake riding. I thought of trying to have sex on it, but I thought that called for a degree of dexterity and athleticism that I probably wouldn't have been able to master. Finally I decided that going for a real bike ride, or just a good walk, would be doing me considerably more good, and cut the boredom factor down radically.

One item that failed to make the list, that interested me, was electric bread makers.
"It'll be just like the exercise bike," said my ex-wife when I vouchsafed the idea of buying a bread maker. "You'll use it three times, and then it'll end up in the garage, never to be used again."

And that is what happened -- for a time. It was sort of a breadmakerus interruptus, in which it did end up in the garage -- actually for years. And then, years and marriages passed, and I found it one day a few years ago. I hauled it out. I found some recipes. I fired it up. The bread I made was wonderful. Wendy and I actually used it so often that it wore out, and we bought a newer, considerably improved one. We use no other source of the staff of life. I resent it if we are traveling and I actually have to 'buy' bread. The bread I make is so much more wonderful, and it costs literally pennies per loaf.

Thank you, Black & Decker, you can now pay me for the plug. And, I would be interested to learn about the item(s) you find the most useless.