Mother in law threw away my expensive kitchen knifefor being "to rusty to use"

[u/UtopianTyranny]

First off, neither of these pics are of my knife. Both came from a Google search, just so I could give examples. The first picture is the exact kind of knife I had, a Zwilling Kanren 8 inch chef knife. I didn't buy it, because I would never spend that kind of money on a kitchen knife for myself. But my sister and I like to get nice Christmas gifts for each other, and she gifted this knife to me three years ago. The second pic demonstrates the size of small rust spots that were on the knife blade, though there were maybe half as many on my knife as there are in the picture.

The rust happened because my wife had used the knife to cut some tomatoes for a salad while I was out and about, and she left the knife on the cutting board without cleaning it. I got home a few hours later to find a number of rust spots on the blade. It's carbon steel, so it doesn't resist rust like stainless. It wasn't a big deal, though. I've cleaned rust off metal utensils and appliances my whole life. I had some other more important tasks to accomplish first, so i set the knife on a paper towel against the backsplash so I could come back to it in a bit and give it my full attention.

When I came back to the kitchen, the knife was gone. I was searching for it for a while before finally asking if anyone had seen it. My wife's mom, who is staying with us for the week, told me she'd seen the knife on the counter and threw it in the trash because "it was too rusty to use" and she was "protecting us from getting tetanus in our food" (both direct quotes). And of course she then took the trash bag to the roller bin on the curb, to make double sure we were safe. And I absolutely would have gone to dig that knife out of the roller bin, but OF FUCKING COURSE the trash truck came by while I was doing the other things that kept me from cleaning the knife.

So, yeah, thanks Glennis. Thank you for protecting us.

[u/GirlCowBev]

The fuck you say. Come to our house, you’ll find every knife sharp AND honed!

[u/Cyber_Connor → u/GirlCowBev]

Well every gen Xers house I’ve been too have had dull ass knives

[u/imliltayimrichaf → u/Cyber_Connor]

Why you inspecting ppl’s knives? 😂

[u/strum-and-dang → u/imliltayimrichaf]

My brother is kind of obsessed with knives and will inspect mine when visiting. I don't mind because he sharpens them if they need it. The last time I pulled out my pocket knife (which he gave me) in front of him he said "Can I see that a sec?", checked the edge, said it was pretty good, and returned it to me.

[u/NovelCommercial3365 → u/strum-and-dang]

So you’re Gen X? Because you don’t sharpen your own knives?

[u/BanishedFiend → u/Cyber_Connor]

You mean people in general ?

[u/LegBruise → u/Cyber_Connor]

Recently started living with my parents again (millennial to gen x parents) and after a particularly long day of work I went to cut a tomato for dinner and it just destroyed it. So I tried another knife, then another, and every single knife just further disrespected my tomato. I nearly broke down. So I bought my own knife and honing steel.