Rolling pins: them, me, and the ancient argument as to what constitutes a ‘pin’.

Posted: November 2, 2025 | Author: samsywoodsy | Filed under: Brief...therefore witty. | Tags: absurdism, baking, cooking, crime, food, funny, home defence, home economics, Humour, justice, life, recipe, recipes, rolling pins, writing |Leave a comment

I appreciate there are going to be some alternative definitions from my own, as to what constitutes a ‘pin’. I also know that some of these are going to be ‘factual’.

But what pride themselves on in terms of correctness, they more than let themselves down in accuracy.

A pin is something that you can pin with. If a thing cannot pin, a pin it is not.

Rolling pins – they’re not pins. They’re my ultimate bed fellow of the realm we can all relate to: something you enjoy having around, regardless of its purpose.

I can picture a medieval woman, house-bound, subjugated and bored, being told the local ravishers are on their way to commit their namesake.

Thankfully, she has a rolling pin, which must, simply ‘must’, have been used at least once in human history to defeat the bad guy.

Got yourself a villain? Bop him on the head with a rolling pin.

Got a yourself a villain nearby but just out of reach? Throw a rolling pin at him, the distant git.

Baking?

Baking and interrupted by a villain?

Bop him about the head and neck with a rolling pin, before returning to the esoteric application of a rolling pin outside of villain-bopping and household defence (plus all around justice): somehow flattening dough.

I’ve never really been able to use a rolling pin for anything other than a really good time thrashing it about and some amateur Morris dancing (I haven’t landed a paid Morris-dancing gig yet, but I hear its all about persistence. Keep at it and eventually someone will pay you to leave. They won’t threaten – you’ve got a rolling pin and a fucking hanky.).

When at school I put the rolling pin to dough and nothing really happened – certainly not cakes or bread or whatever it was I was being taught. Least of all flattened dough.

As I got older I treated myself to a basic, this’ll-do, rolling pin, in preparation for the day in which I’d be bopping anti-social behaviour in the face.

I’ve still got it. My wife uses it for cooking every now and again (and bloody again), whilst I prefer to chase my children with it – so the whole family gets good use out of it.

In the event of a fire, or perhaps some near-world-event, if I’ve time to grab something from the house before dashing for the village hall, I’m grabbing my rolling pin. And kids.

And people at the village hall would be pleased, commending me for bringing so jolly-decent a thing as a rolling pin to the end of the world that the whole Parish can find some relief from.

I don’t know if it would necessarily aid in clearing rubble in search of wounded, or be massively handy when it comes to building a new basic infrastructure system once the fallout has cleared, but it wouldn’t half give me confidence in the new world.

Such confidence, that in fact it would aid in clearing rubble, and in developing basic infrastructure. Because we’ve got a rolling pin.

But it’s still not a ‘pin’.

Spur of the moment, I’m going to rename them to “Oods”.

I like that, it works, and I like that and it works.

And even if it doesn’t work, you can’t deny I like that.

Sam

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