Claire Reid
A guy was left baffled by the ‘shiv’-like prize his son won in a Christmas cracker - and I’ll be honest it’s got me stumped as well.
Thousands of Brits will have pulled a cracker on Christmas Day this year, donning their colourful paper crown and reading out one of the worst jokes known to man.
Alongside there is also, of course, a small gift - which is often something that is ostensibly useful but in reality is too small to be practical, such as a tiny set of screwdrivers or a notepad with pages so teeny they can barely fit one word on.
But in the case of dad Mike Crees the prize actually turned out to be a bit of a puzzle as he had absolutely no idea what it was supposed to be.
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In a post on the Dull Men’s Club Facebook page, Crees asked: “A ‘cracker toy’. But what is it? Sturdy metal, resembles a small letter opener, no holes or hinges, not particularly sharp (but confiscated from the 10 year old due to it being wielded like shiv).
“Not an oyster knife, a bit lost really... But there will be some fellow dull men out there who know.”
For those unaware of the slang term, a ‘shiv’ is a handmade bladed weapon that resembles a knife and is mostly associated with prison inmates.
So, not very Christmassy.
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Shortly after sharing his post, answers began rolling in with plenty of folks agreeing that it did look very shiv-y.
“It's definitely a Christmas shiv,” said one person.
Another commented: “Think you were right with shiv.”
Someone else joked: “Someone in HMP Belmarsh is wondering what to do with a mini plastic comb.”
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Others suggested that it may be half a pair of scissors or ‘scis’ for short.
A fellow Dull Man's Club member said: “It's a scissor. You need to get another one.”
While a second said: "It's half of a pair of scis…”
Although the dad was given no definitive answer, it seems that ‘letter opener’ was a fairly common consensus.
And given that Crees himself has described it was a ‘small letter opener’, I reckon that fits nicely with the tradition of whatever you get in a Christmas cracker being a bit too little to be of any real use.
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But if you disagree, please feel free to let us know what it actually is in the comments.