An ordinary nutcracker that probably won't explode.
An ordinary nutcracker that probably won’t explode. utroja0/CC0

It’s the holiday season, and sometime over the course of the past few days, odds are good that you cracked some nuts. Maybe you used a simple metal nutcracker. Maybe you used one of those fancy ones that look like toothy men.

Or maybe, accidentally, you used something else entirely. According to China Radio International, a man from Shaanxi recently realized that his trusty nutcracker, which he has been using for the past quarter century, was actually a hand grenade.

The object, which has the long handle and blunt end of a good walnut-smasher, doesn’t look much like a grenade. A friend had given it to him in 1991, the man said. But when he came across a police safety leaflet with illustrations of lesser-known bombs and grenades, “he realized [he] possessed a forbidden explosive, and had been banging it against things for years,” writes CRI.

He has turned the rogue nutcracker over to police, who will try to figure out if it can still explode. In the meantime, he is getting blown up on Weibo. “Why would a friend gift him a bomb?” one commenter asked. Perhaps they just wanted to make his life more exciting.