In the photo you can see a crucial household item I just bought at an antique furniture store for $10. Can you guess what it is?
It is truly something no household can go without. I have no idea how I’ve manged to live for so many years and not have it.
I’m pretty sure I know what it is, but I’ll hold off on answering to give other folks a shot. What I want to know is, how will you get it to work? An essential component for its functioning is generally not available in the modern home.
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This object is smaller than the one you are thinking of. 🙂
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It looks like an antique sandwich maker. Or a coal warmer to put in a bed pan under your bed. I’m not sure how necessary the second is if you have working central heat AND a fireplace AND proper insulation AND you don’t live someplace exceedingly cold.
I wouldn’t have minded an antique sandwich maker or a coal warmer to put in a bed pan under my bed when I lived up north. One winter one of the two furnaces went out. It was very unpleasant.
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It looks like a ‘silent butler,’ which was for emptying (yuck) ashtrays back in the day, but I am guessing that its purpose now is more benign.
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A covered butter dish?
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I was thinking butter dish but it is not the right shape.
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crumb sweeper?
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Yes!!!! We’ve got ourselves a winner. It’s called a crumble catcher. And of course I had to get it when I saw that name.
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I’m sure many restaurants have them. Crumb catchers are an absolutely necessary item if you eat lots of crusty bread. No more repurposing a dirty plate to sweep the crumbs off the table before cleaning up. Does it have a little broom inside?
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I always saw one of those at an elderly relative’s house when I was a kid.
Thought it was a fancy ashtray…
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
Clarissa's Blog 
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