 |
 |
THING of the month
March 2010:
The Drip-Catcher
![]() |
 |
|
![]() |
|
drip-catcher, produced by Famos-Westmark GmbH, 2010 |
|
![]() |
Like the German "Feldhamster" and the word "Dreikäsehoch", the drip catcher also is in danger of extinction. Although the drip catcher once was a thing that was a must have in every living room, it is now sharing its doleful destiny with things like floppy disks, old-fashioned eggbeaters and bulbs. Equipped with a hook, a webbing and a little sponge, often decorated with flowers or a butterfly, it prevented thousands of table cloths from collision with the threatened coffee drop.
It is a special affair with drops. Hardly anyone likes it, when somewhere something is dropping. If you think of langlauf skiers, who reach their finish line with imposing drops at their noses, giving interviews in front of the camera. Dropping water taps endanger the environment and in "Mission Impossible", just one single drop which fell down, triggered the alarm and brought the protagonist, played by Tom Cruise, in mortal danger. Drops can make people go crazy. For an extremely perfidiously torture method, the victim got strapped with his face under a dropping bowl. That way the captive could see how every single drop lifted and sped at his face, before it landed on his forehead. Also art engaged in drops. Through works of art like "The Waterdrop" made by Mario Merz, the drop got famous in a way.
Not that dropping coffee and tea pots have been improved, but the existence of thermos jugs, latte macchiato coffee and tea bags and first of all the gradual disappearing of tea cloths, make the drip catcher unnecessary and it becomes a touching relict out of our grandparents' generation. So we look back on "Kaffeetafeln" with high class porcelain and homemade cake.
writer: Manja Weinert
|
|
|
|
