While I wait on the Canadian postal folks to deliver some meds Heather sent me I am finding myself with some time on my hands.  I had planned to be on the road starting tomorrow, but unless the package shows up today I am here at least until Monday.  And there’s only so many tiny adjustments I can make to a bike that is ready to roll.

So, as I was saying…time on my hands.

The mind races.  You perseverate on strange things.  You find yourself thinking of questions you’ve never heard or seen answered anywhere, ever.

Like, “What happens if you lose the toothpick in your Swiss Army knife?”

Yeah, the little yellowish thingie pulled partway out of the knife on the left end. That.

At one time, finding the answer to a question like that would require some kind of human interaction.  You’d have to go to a store- in this case probably a sporting goods place- and ask if replacements were available.  Of course they wouldn’t be, but you’d be told, maybe after a couple of tries, to write Victorinox, the manufacturer of Swiss Army knives, in Switzerland and ask.  At that point, you’d probably give up, as such a task probably was more trouble than having a knife you bought for around twenty bucks made whole again was worth.  Maybe, if you were really anal (the voice of experience speaking here), you’d shoot a little blob of silicone sealant into the toothpick hole to keep dirt from getting into the knife’s pristine inner recesses.  Or maybe not.

Or you’d write the letter, trying hard not to envision some Swiss office gnome reading it, chuckling and wadding it up and throwing it in the Victorinox company wastebasket, then saying to his or her fellows, “Zilly American doesn’t know you NEVAIR remoof ze toothpick.” Months would go by, and maybe you’d start getting Victorinox catalogs in the mail, but you’d know you’d been defeated and that your knife would be toothpick-less until the day you’d lose it by dropping it over the side of the canoe into the lake while trying unsuccessfully to use the small flat screwdriver blade to adjust the drag on your Garcia Mitchell open face reel.

Then your Swiss Army knife would belong to the ages and you’d buy a Buck knife, figuring that there was no toothpick to lose.

The Internet, of course, has changed all that.  Googling “replacement toothpick Swiss Army knife” takes you immediately to this.

Don’t believe me?  Here’s the [linkie].

I don’t know if I’m truly happy in a world where just about any everyday mystery can be solved on a computer in less than five minutes.  So there’s your answer to the QotD (Question of the Day), and you are welcome to it.

I just need for my meds to show up.