1652 Shaping Up

I'm sometimes hung up on the shapes of things—the little unattractive geometries of our world. Like recently I saw someone holding his smartphone. He was doing it in that hand-splayed manner characteristic of smartphone users. The new manual geometry.
You can't just hold a smartphone like you're holding a walkie-talkie. You have to put your longest finger on the top end and your thumb on the bottom end. Clutch it, like a crab.
Not too attractive, but hey—definitely gives a leg up, or possibly a hand up, to those folks who've had some piano training. The longer you can stretch your fingers, the more comfortably you can hold your phone to take a picture. Even if you look funny doing so.
I think my first encounter with the ugly geometries of everyday life was a cheap haircut. We were pretty poor growing up. And getting a professional haircut, even from the local barber whose sole stylist training was clippers in bootcamp, was something of a treat, reserved for Christmas season. As far as I was concerned, one of the three iconic gifts to the Baby Jesus should have been a good haircut.
For us, the rest of the year meant a bowl cut. Except in our instance, it was a Cool Whip tub cut. Well not actually Cool Whip. We were so poor we had the Western Family Whipped Topping tub cut.
It was the continuation of a family tradition. We'd grown out of the margarine tub my mom used when we were babies. Problem was, one time our Whipped Topping tub wasn't cleaned too well.
I think we may have actually invented the concoction that led to the shape of things to come.
Mousse.
America, ya gotta love it.