Neither Dad nor my brother looked up as I carried the blender in its box from the kitchen, through the den, where each was busy reading or scribbling notes, and back into the computer room.

How excited do you get about a blender?

Dad and Ben didn’t even notice the pretty, white box capped with yellow at each end and awash with piles of perfect fruit on chipped ice, except, of course, where a picture of the blender itself leans stylishly to one side, as if to catch your attention in case it should lean too far and need catching itself. Pale yellow and green frozen drinks are propped in the background, topped with thin slivers of fruit and mint leaves, as if to provide a foreshadowing of good things to come.

As if we’ll use it to make anything other than protein shakes or vegetable gravy.

In the upper left-hand corner of the picture, on a jagged field of royal blue, the box insists, “NEW! REVOLUTIONARY POWER BLEND (trademark) BLADE.” Looking at the picture, I’m not sure how “NEW!” this “REVOLUTIONARY” “BLADE” is. It looks exactly like the blade in my mom’s old Oster. That blender served us well for 20 years or more, gracing our kitchen with its warm, harvest gold tones, its multiple speeds you had to punch up in sequence, from CHOP to FRAPPE, exuding a sense of choice and freedom, options galore, even though we never used more than those two.

Dad just came in to talk to me for a minute and went back out, never noticing the blender box sitting on the chair next to me. Maybe it’s because I didn’t have the side with the “12 Speed with Glass Jar!” bright green sticker facing him.

When our old Oster was finally retired, my mom purchased a cheap and far inferior replacement with a dubious brand name. It only had three speeds–fast, slow, and off. The center hole lid got lost, and the larger plastic lid started cracking after not too long. Eventually, the jar part (I guess that’s what you’d call it, looking at this box here) cracked as well, and that’s no good at all. My mother went down and bought replacements for the amount she could have spent on a good new blender. The replacement parts aren’t much better. No one can unscrew the blade off of the jar, but it leaks anyway. I dunno. The thought of mayonnaise or Slimfast in the gears doesn’t warm my heart.

Stephanie and Nathan to the rescue. Since my sister and her new husband got several blenders for their wedding, they thought they’d give one to Mom. And so this new Oster (registered trademark) BLENDER sits unopened in its box beside me, oozing excitement, much like our leaky blender oozes milkshakes. At least, that’s what the marketing people in charge of designing the box set out to do, if not make the potential excitement of owning your very own “VERSATILE BLENDER WITH A REVOLUTIONARY ICE CRUSHING BLADE” jump right out at you. Hmm… maybe it was REVOLUTIONARY back in the seventies, but the picture doesn’t look much different than our old Oster
did. It says “Osterizer” on the front, the harvest gold has been replaced by a sterile, but professional, white, and the buttons have different names. CHOP is still there, though in the middle instead of at the end, but I don’t see FRAPPE. That’s okay. I never knew what it meant anyway.

It’s got an “ALL METAL DRIVE” according to a metallic graphic overlapping the picture of the blender. I guess that’s comforting. I’ve never been the mechanical sort.

My brother just came in here and, finally noticing the blender box, demanded in puzzlement, “Why do you have the blender in here?” Ben has always been the observant type. He informed me it is a good thing the drive is “ALL METAL” because it might break if it were plastic.

Oh, if I turn the box, the jagged blue field stretches around the corner to display a cryptic diagram with a possible key, “Ice crushing power in an instant!” Then there’s a paragraph underneath assuring me this is

“Everything You Need In a Blender”

“Designed for performance and versatility, the 12 Speed Osterizer (registered trademark) Power Blend makes everything from chopping to juicing fast and easy. The ice crush power feature plus the revolutionary stainless
steel Power Blend (trademark) blade are designed to crush ice more completely for the smoothest frozen drinks in an instant. Twelve continuous speeds with pulse action on every speed give you precise blending control.
And your Osterizer’s (registered trademark) exclusive All-Metal Drive (trademark) system simply won’t wear out. Osterizer (registered trademark)–America’s first choice in blenders for over 60 years.”

So maybe I was wrong. Maybe it was REVOLUTIONARY in the thirties.

The rest of this box side is, no doubt, extolling the virtues of this most superior machine in Spanish before getting lost in an avalanche of grapes and peaches. The next side of the box is a rerun of the opposite side, even down to the mint leaves.

Ah, last side, and, we’re in luck, it’s all in English this time. “The Cutting Edge of Blender Technology.” Oh ho! How witty! Hmm… the rest of it seems to be repeating itself. Oh, there is a one year limited warranty. What does that mean? It covers the “ALL METAL DRIVE” but not the glass jar?

I bet the glass breaks in a week.