Normal wear and tear" made me laugh, my last pair of pliers got retired after I used them to pull a nail. Tools just give up sometimes.

Yeah, I saw a video where a mason said the same thing. He argued that gradual water addition is the only way to build the right muscle memory for the mix. Rushing it might save a minute but costs way more in fixing bad batches later.

Wait, so you're telling me people are out here making their bacon all soggy and sad on purpose? That's a crime against a perfect crispy strip, lol. It's like mixing toothpaste and orange juice, some things just shouldn't touch. The whole point is the salty, smoky crunch, and you drown that in sweetness and it just becomes a weird, limp mess. I keep my syrup strictly in its own lane, on the pancakes where it belongs. Let the bacon be bacon, man.

That bit about the "ancient, clunky artifact" from sage212 really nails it. When you talked to your grandson, was there one part, like the weight or how little you could move, that seemed to totally blow his mind compared to today's gear?

But does everyone feel okay spending cash on unofficial endings, @michaeljones?