h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

If you REALLY need to open a jar with a metal lid and the hot-tap treatment doesn't work, one trick I've found useful is to boil a kettle and then simply dip the jar top in the boiled water for a few seconds. That amount of heat always makes the metal expand enough so that you can get the lid off. It might sound like a lot of trouble to go to, but it's certainly easier than going to the gym and developing muscles!

Or you can bang the actual lid side-on on a bench or table, or something similar.

I don't know if it works, but it looks like you know what you're doing!

hint: Never do this with vegemite jars (with the lids with 'ridges' around the edges) - it dints tables. Trust me on this.

This sounds really weird but it does work about 9 times out of 10 (for jars at least)

Take your jar. Lay it on its side on the floor. Now take your foot [1] and, placing it carefully along the line of the lid, roll the jar backwards and forwards along the floor a few times [2].

The jar will usually open with very little effort after this treatment [3]


[1] a single foot is recommended.
[2] not much pressure is required at all
[3] don't ask me why/how it works. It just does.

Science lesson!!!
The most common reason for the jar to get so impossibly stuck on jars is that there's been a vacuum (or at least a severe diffenrence in air pressure) created between the lid and the content of the jar.
Heating the jar up expands the air inside the jar, as does the foot approach described above by my esteemed fellowresearcher.

However, if you don't feel like stepping on your food, or if you are easily burned by hot water, you can simply use a knife or a similarly useful kitchen utensil. Then follow these easy steps:
1: Wedge the tool between the lid and the actual jar.
2. Wiggle the tool a bit.
3. Remove tool and try to unscrew the lid.

If this is unsuccessful the first time, try it again, and if that doesn't work, let someone else have a go.

LinS

As far as the 'kitchen utensil' is concerned, I've found that the end of a teaspoon is as good as anything else - which end is up to you. I'm always worried that a knife blade will break.

Another method that I've found works is to wrap one or more rubber bands around the lid of the bottle or jar. The number required depends on how thick the rubber bands are. More are required if the bands are thin than if they are thick. The rubber bands improve your grip on the lid, making it easier to open. You can also get rubber 'flowers' that you put over the lid, which are supposed to serve the same purpose but never work for me!

To release the vacuum, you could always try simply piercing the lid or the jar with a sharp instrument. Then again, maybe this approach is just a bit too simple, and not advisable unless your going to use all the contents in one sitting.

My mother used to use this approach in the days when some jam jars had lids that had to be prised off rather than unscrewed. It meant that the lid could be put back on the jar as it wasn't too badly damaged. (Prising of lids could wreck the lid if you weren't careful.) If the jar was kept in the fridge you didn't have to worry about the content's going off. Alternatively, if you were posh you could transfer the jam to a special dish, but this would also have to be kept in the fridge.

My mother used to bang round the edge of stubborn lids with the back of a wooden spoon. This is generally easier to manage and doesn't run the risk of wrecking your furniture. I guess the 'vibration' from all the banging is supposed to break the vacuum somehow, but it's never worked for me.

But it LOOKS like you know what you're doing!

All you need do is listen for the soft 'whoosh' of the vacuum being released.

Either the soft "whooosh" or the sudden "click" sound, depending on how vacuumous (is that actually a word?) the inside of the jar is. Like when you open a bottle of Fruitopia for the first time. Of course, the Fruitopia lids are made to "click", so they're also a great way to annoy the hell out of everyone, by clicking it repeatedly, and trying to get rythms out of the clicking.
BTW. Does anyone besides me know what Fruitopia is?

Flavoured water, as near as I can figure.

Pretty close. Basically it's just a lemonade type drink where they've ("they" in this case is the Coca Cola company) mixed up some unlikely mixtures of fruits and berries into a pretty tasty beverage.
The main point, though, is the driving people nuts with the clicking of the lid of the bottles.

I've tasted it on occasion. As I said, "flavoured water".

And the clicking of the lid, of course.

Rubber gloves! Y'know - latexy type thingees.... They're excellent for increasing grip of the offending article.

I also have a kitchen utensil that grips the top of jars and bottles and actually works (mostly...) but I got it years ago and don't even know whether they're on sale anymore.

My mother always used to get me to open jars for her as she found it difficult and I used to think her weak, but now I have arthritis in both my thumbs I realise what she used to go through to open jars as I just can't get a grip on jars and bottles any more. (A bit like life really....not getting a grip on it I mean...oh, sorry I'll just wander off somewhere and cry....)

*patpat* ... Don't cwy, Gwennie... There's more than a few of us around her who know how you feel.

S'alright, thanks! I'm okay now - Santa has been and my kids are wallowing in toys and sweets and I'm under less stress coz they're leaving me alone at last! The pills are working too (heh, heh)!

Its true. Being the swooning young impressionable girl that i am, I find that a man who knows how to open a bottle is damn right sexy.Oh yeah!

I can relate to that! Especially if he has broad shoulders, rippling biceps...... (Gwennie swoons, drooling onto rubbish bag filled with wrapping paper!)