My daughter loves to get my wife what I call, “useless appliances;” they aren’t really useless, but they don’t have real big function, either. Like the Smores maker…I mean, it’s an appliance that can only make smores from grahams, chocolate, and marshmallows. It works, and well, but still…I mean, it’s a smores maker.

So for Mother’s Day this year, Katie got Annie a Rival Snow Cone Maker (model #IS400; it’s really an ice shaver). And at the same time it makes what has to be the lightest, fluffiest shaved ice I’ve seen since I was a kid, it’s also going back to the store for the second time.

First off, the machine is kinda cute; it’s advertised as having a, “translucent top,” so one can watch the ice get shaved, but…um…not-so-much. The idea is you open the top (white) lid, pop in some ice cubes (it works best if you put one cube in each of the three “compartments” in the rotating plastic augar), drop down the white lid and press gently. Sitting behind the exit slit is a mean-ugly stainless steel blade…it’s completely out of the way of hands (although certainly some fool will figure out a way to cut himself on the thing and then sue) but contacts the ice when the motor drives the augar around. The ice is propelled into the blade, the blade does it’s work, and the snow flies out the slit into your waiting cone/glass/bowl. I’m telling you, the shavings that come out of this thing are so light and fluffy, the snow cone syrup coats and sticks beautifully instead of all pooling at the bottom. (Heck, it’s even yummy to munch on the shavings without syrup. And for whatever it’s worth, I prefer HawaiiIce brand syrups to Rival’s own; Rival’s are a little too sweet for my taste. Geez, I munch some snow cones for a week or two, and suddenly I’m a gormet…)

The problem with the unit is the switching system - it’s a disaster. Like most modern appliances, it’s necessary to have the switch setup over-engineered to avoid lawsuits and the like, so this device uses an odd set of plastic extentions to eventually hit the switch on the top of the motor housing. When the first one we had and exchanged failed in this way, I assumed it was a fault in construction…but now I can see the fault lies in the engineering itself. The plastic “ring” under the top of the container housing that is depressed by the lid, which is supposed to depress the plastic extension, and through that the switch on the base, seems to warp quickly…after only a few days of use, it’s now impossible to activate the motor using the lid…the only way to get that fluffy ice I love so is to take the end of a spoon and manually depress the ring through the holes at the hinge-point of the lid. That means the lid must remain wide-open while the auger is pushing the ice into the shaver blade. Like I said, it’s neigh-on impossible to get anywhere near that blade (which removes for cleaning, which is how I got to see how nasty the sucker is in the first place) with a body part, but still it doesn’t seem like such a smart idea to force a spoon handle past the hinge of the open lid while making ice shavings.

(Ok, ok, so we’ve made a lot of snow cones over the past few days…but it isn’t like we opened a stand or anything. There’s no way two seperate units should have stressed to the point of inoperability in under a week each with some afternoon snacking for two-and-a-half people. Hum…make that three; Katie can crunch snow cones with the best of ‘em.)

So…I’m afraid it’s going to go back. Again. But now, I’m stuck in the market for a new ice shaver…there’s no way, now that I’ve rediscovered the lost nostalgic joy of a grape-and-cherry-mixed snow cone that I’m going to be without it for long. I just hope I can find one that makes shavings as beautiful as this unit does…and one that lasts longer than a few days doing it.