Wait, actually, the one in the dining room IS a nutcracker, but this one's different. They look to be part of a set... This must be the turkey baster.

Holy socks, we have one of those in the dining room!

My dad has a couple of these. It's meant to be used for removing corn kernels (uncooked of course, and generally field corn) from the cob, although another creative use he has for them is removing the outer husks from black walnuts. Talk about a yucky black-stained mess.

"Nickelodeons" THANK YOU, I could NOT remember what those things are called. Cedar Point's museum sounds like an incentive for me to get back up there. I haven't been since before they built the Millennium Force, which is pretty sad since I'm only a couple hours away (from where I sit at work I could probably walk to Pennsylvania in under a half hour). Somebody needs to do a post on antique-style amusement parks that are still in operation, like Kennywood in Pittsburgh. Props to Cedar Point though, it does have some of that feel about it still.

Nice post Luci! Granted, I'm biased because she's my sister and I was there too. The hand in the mechanical dog-bitey cage is indeed still there (we got my girlfriend to try it in the hopes of making her jump out of her skin, ;) though we merely got some amusing squirming out of her), but it's only a fair example of all the other bizarre things there. The "Museum" part of the title is no lie: there are some genuinely antique boardwalk type of attractions that are pushing 100 years old, sometimes right next to a brand-new arcade game or pinball machine. I think my favorite part is the player piano/calliope/automaton instrument hybrid thingamajig. You wouldn't think he could cram all that crazy stuff into that one big room.