Some of my purchases defy explanation, so does that qualify me as a mystery shopper? I am especially drawn to  items that appear to be one-of-a-kind.  That usually means I don’t know what they are and they don’t have  identification tags and how-to-use  booklets. The whole world is my department store.  If an item looks intriguing, no matter that it can be picked up from the shoulder-0f-the- road outlet or from a backwoods junk pile.

One such find was so eye-catching I had to turn around in the next driveway to rescue it from the edge of the road.  It was  a huge, heavy, rusty spring that  had dropped from the underneath of a passing rig.  It would make a useful paper-sorter when it was placed sideways on my classroom desk.  Reality was that I  didn’t sort that many papers.  I’m a stacker.   Turned  on its  end it became an ‘objet d’art’  purely for the sake of its form and the exercise my brain got trying to fathom that spring stretching  like the slinkies of my youth or moving like the ones in my ballpoint pens. When the dark side of my mind fathomed it as a  potential weapon  for smashing a window or cracking a skull, I moved it to a corner in my storeroom to hold a bouquet of peacock plumes, out of everyone’s sight but mine.  Without a save tag, the spring  eventually  found its way to the same dimension that is holding the computerized folder of the rough draft of my first thesis.  What a flea marketer’s fantasy…to stumble upon that corner of the universe where all things go that carry the sticker – “Wonder whatever happened to…?”

Since I have entered a phase of life that yearns for simplicity, there has been a lot of discarding, donating and discounting  going on around here.  The space and time I am uncovering are mind-altering.  Some  winters ago I sat through a two-week span without  power, never remembering or noticing  I had an oil lamp, complete with wick and oil and globe, all ready for shedding light on my cold space. That was a sign change was looming.   My path to simplicity is traveling through a maze of nostalgia, so it’s not a route I am traveling quickly, but I’m not backtracking so I call it  progress.

There is an item I want to keep.  I want to use it. Surely it has form and function to justify its presence!  No doubt  it was mass-produced since Pyrex is stamped all over it, but  I have never seen one like it.  It must  percolate  coffee or brew  tea.

Tell me what you think!  May I set it on my electric stovetop?  Or am I missing some sort of heating stand it goes in?  And how do I get the top pot off the bottom pot?  The chrome strainer looks like it should go on the bottom part for serving.   Hope these photos help. Any insight anyone can share will be much appreciated! My goal is to make this mystery shopping acquisition a mystery solved!