...brass hose nozzles? You remember them, they were long truncated cones of heavy yellow metal that screwed on to the end of your garden hose. They only had one control, one moving part, they twisted so you could adjust the stream of water, from hard, fast flow to low pressure big-drop deluge to fine mist to "off". One or two twists and the water stream could be adjusted to any household or yard requirement. And they were maintenance free, we had one on our garden hose for as long as I could remember, from grade school until I left home. The damn thing was indestructible, it never corroded and it always worked. Even the oversized rubber gasket on the inside could easily be replaced if it leaked, they had 'em at the hardware store for a nickel apiece. But we never had to get a new one, the leak was never all that bad and slow to develop.

You can't get them anymore, now you have these flimsy plastic things that are shaped like a gun, with a spring-loaded squeeze grip, an adjustment screw, a wire clip to hold down the grip, and an adjustable nozzle to control the stream size and force. They rarely last a season, they rust easily and they have a tendency to fail catastophically: when they go, you get soaked. They look sturdy and rubberized on the outside but if you take one apart to try to fix it the interior is made of cheap plastic and pot metal and it only assembles one way--you can't put it back together after you dismantle it.

I've looked everywhere, Home Depot, Loew's, Ace Hardware, hey...I live in Florida, people are always messing with hoses in the yard. But you can no longer get a proper hose nozzle. I know brass is expensive these days, but buying a cheap nozzle is a false economy. For a while, the garden stores were carrying an ersatz model, at about $18.99, it looked like the real thing, but it did not work. The nozzle had only two positions: full blast or not at all, and it froze about halfway after a couple of hours of use. I returned three of them for refund and replacement before I gave up and started using my thumb to control the flow, and the old kinkaroo to stop it all together.

In a bulletin board group full of engineers and free market mavens, perhaps someone can tell me: Whatever happened to brass hose nozzles?