Combs Ain't What They Used To Be

Dating back to when I first started carrying and using a pocket comb decades ago, two things defined my experience. One, the combs had the word UNBREAKABLE stamped on them. Two, much like their label promised, they didn't break. I'd have to replace one every 5-10 years because I lost it.

Combs aren't like that anymore.



I don't see combs stamped UNBREAKABLE right on the plastic anymore. Oh, they come in packaging that says "Unbreakable!" on the label, but like most things with marketing labels it's... an aspirational statement. (Translation: a special legal category for literal lie that won't be prosecuted as misrepresentation.)

I bought a comb 18 months ago in packaging marked "Unbreakable!" It literally snapped in half minutes after I opened the package. The picture above shows the next comb I bought after that, after 17 months of gentle use. Once the teeth started falling out after about 15 months the deterioration accelerated. It'd lose a tooth or two a week; lately it lost a tooth or two a day until I decided to throw it out.

Teriyaki Chicken from Costco

A few weeks ago Hawk and I bought a package of "Hawaiian Style Chicken" at Costco. It's pre-cooked chicken in a package with pineapple teriyaki sauce; we'd just need to heat and eat. We find heat-and-eat meals to be a hit-or-miss proposition. We gave this one a try, and it was a hit.



The precooked chicken and sauce come in a vacuum-sealed bag. Per the instructions I separated out the chicken for cooking. I decided to cook it on the bbq grill. I used low heat to prevent the sugary sauce covering the chicken from burning. That led to the bigger pieces of chicken taking about 20 minutes to heat through vs. the 15 minutes recommended on the package. No problem; I'd much rather wait 5 extra minutes for food well prepared than get hasty, haphazard results.

While the chicken was on the grill I poured the remaining sauce into a saucepan and heated it on the stove. Once the meat was done I poured some of the heated sauce back over the chicken and reserved the rest for a gravy boat.



We served the chicken with some heat-and-eat sticky rice... which coincidentally also comes from Costco! (We bought it on a different trip months ago.)

Overall the meal was pretty tasty. The chicken heated through well, and the sauce was sweet without being cloyingly so. I'd had teriyaki chicken at a Panda Express the day before, and this sauce tasted better than the restaurant's! In terms heat-and-eat meals being hit-or-miss, this one was a hit.