Recently I’ve been reminded (in the most bizarre of ways) that we have one extraordinarily special blender. It’s practically a national treasure, it seems. It’s commercial grade – the one you’d find at St. Louis Bread Company or Smoothie King – it’s a Blendtec. And Mark purchased it several years ago from Amazon for ~$7,000.

Just kidding. It was only like $459. I wouldn’t let Mark purchase a small kitchen appliance worth more than my quickly-depreciating Hyundai. This is where I draw the line.

We bought it before we went on a smoothie kick… We’d tried other blenders like the Magic Bullet and grown frustrated. It’s painfully pathetic when your blender nearly breaks as it attempts to grind three pieces of ice. And then you end up with a smoothie full of ice cubes that you have to chew through…

And it’s even worse when a chunk of the blender blade breaks off into your smoothie, unbeknownst to you, and it severs your tongue in half, and you have to put half of your tongue into a lunch box full of ice and rush to the nearest hospital so the doctors can perform emergency surgery, sewing your vital organ back onto your body in the nick of time before it dies, a la Grey’s Anatomy. (This last part didn’t really happen, but I could totally see it coming, which is why I signed off on the purchase of the Blendtec.)

So we pretty quickly found the Blendtec to be far more effective and safe. It will easily puree the snot out of anything – ice cubes, frozen fruit, carrots, rocks, concrete, and it will do so without throwing off the errant tongue-severing blade. In fact, if you enjoy saving some digestive steps, consuming your meals in liquid form, or happen to need dental or facial surgery, the recovery from which will include your jaw being wired shut for an extended time period necessitating that you suck your food down through a straw, this is totally the perfect blender for you.

To date, we’ve used our Blendtec 743 times. (It actually counts for you.) Most of these uses were smoothies – apple juice, Greek yogurt, frozen strawberries, and frozen blueberries, with some spinach leaves when we were feeling like getting in touch with our inner organic, Portland-dwelling selves. Though eventually these habits fizzled, because although antioxidants do wonders for the immune system, apparently it isn’t ideal to consume 14,000 wild blueberries in one sitting. I mean, this is a LOT of sugar and a LOT of calories and will have one shitting green for days.

In addition to its raw capabilities the Blendtec is also really loud. It speaks to Howie in a fun way, the sound of it causing him to lift his snout to the sky, as if an ambulance were in close proximity, howling along with it in perfect harmony for its 30 second smoothie-making duration. It’s kind of like, “Is that a helicopter landing in our front yard? No, it’s just the Blendtec.”

So back to being reminded of the Blendtec’s beauty…

AB likes to house/dog sit for us. She likes dogs and she enjoys getting paid $25/day and she doesn’t mind our senile neighbor calling her Christine (said neighbor calls me Mark and Mark Mike), and she loves our blender. Like before I leave for an out-of-town trip I usually text AB, “I left the money on the counter,” and she replies with, “What about the blender?” And this past time before heading to South Carolina was no different.

And then the other day, I received a text from a friend from whom I’ve not heard since last July or August. It said something to the effect of, “Where did you get your blender? And we’ve been thinking of you…” And I kind of got a kick out of this, because I sort of interpreted it more like, “Thinking of you… But mostly just dreaming about your wicked-ass blender.”

And I could only laugh at the hilarity of it all. Because sometimes I choose laughter.

Though it’s factually accurate… The Blendtec is indeed pretty wicked. And most Amazon customers agree, as 72% of the ~1,200 reviewers have given it a five-star rating.