#671 Yankee Ingenuity

How far we’ve come.
How sad what we take for granted.
In my hand I’m holding a wonderful container. It’s made of clear thick plastic. It’s shaped like a cube, except it’s not a perfect, symmetrical cube. All its edges are reinforced with cloth taping. Taped seams, I think they’re called. They prevent random ripping and generally make for a more permanent joining.
The top of the cube comes open with a flawlessly aligned taped-edge flap. Around the edges of the top opening are the halves of a zipper, which when put together, zip shut to form a lovely cubular container.
The container is amazing. In primitive times, such a container would have been revered for its symmetry, its workmanship and its potential functionality.
Making such a container by hand, if the plastic were available, would have sent the craftsman to the highest and most exalted status in the tribe. Even today, in primitive areas, such a testimony to craftsmanship would be fully appreciated.
It would be a great container for storing grain perhaps, or berries. Maybe even small mammal parts preparatory to an evening spent making gruel and chewing the fat.
But I’m about to throw it away because I can think of nothing to do with it. I have harder and more permanent containers for storage. I have softer and more ephemeral baggies, foil, and plastic wrap for temporary messy stuff.
So this container, this symbol of Yankee ingenuity, taped seams, zipper, and all, will probably go into the trash. I can’t even recycle it.
And there is nothing more forlorn to keep around the house than an empty container.
Oh yeah, I remember that container. I kept it for a souvenir, of when I—bought my last blanket.
Because that’s what it is, the zippered soft plastic cube my blanket came in. Why did they have to package it so elaborately? Why did they have to bring the force of our massive 21st Century technology to bear, just to cover a blanket temporarily from shelf dust?
And how jaded our society has become, that such a piece of inventiveness, manufacturing skill, and ingenuity is meant to be used once and thrown away.
We take so much for granted. We forget who did what to earn it.
America, ya gotta love it