What Is It? game 304

It's once again time for our collaboration with the wonderfully entertaining What Is It? Blog. Do you know what the pictured item is? Can you make up something totally wacky? That's what we're looking for: the funniest and most creative guesses. We will award t-shirts from the NeatoShop to two commenters who post the cleverest, funniest, or most outlandish use for this thing!

Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many guesses as you'd like in separate comments. You have until Friday evening to come up with great guesses.

Please write your T-shirt selection alongside your guess. If you don't include a selection, you forfeit the prize. May we suggest the Science T-Shirt, Funny T-Shirt and Artist-Designed T-Shirts?

See, you don't have to know the answer to win! And remember, there are more mystery items to figure out at the What Is It? Blog. Good luck!

Update: this item is an automobile valve spring compressor, according to the What Is It? blog. Y'all had much funnier answers, and two of them won t-shirts. MEM said "It's a pogo-stick for fence-sitters. It's for those times when you just don't want to overcome your ambivalence." Ha! And Steven Vredenburgh had a great answer:

This is an example of the "I've got your nose" device. 1340's Germany tradition held that the nose of a ginger child could cure the black plague. The "I've got your nose" device, pictured above, was used to gather the noses of these unfortunate children. Though the practice of harvesting noses soon died out, the idea lingered in the "I've got your nose" game that adults still play with children as a reminder of the horrors of the black plague.

So they both win! Thanks for playing, everyone, and stay tuned for the next What Is It game from the What Is It? blog and Neatorama!