24 December, 2008

Tidied away

When I was a child, and presumably for at least a century beforehand, individually-wrapped sweets were 'sealed' simply by the ends of the wrapper being twisted into a literally iconic shape.

As an adult I don't particularly like sweets, so whilst visiting my mother today I encountered the modern refinement of the wrapper for the first time.

It looks identical, but the twisted ends are actually sealed – pull on the ends and the sweet doesn't neatly unwrap itself. Instead, one is supposed to tear along the wrapper's middle.

All very... sanitary, I'm sure, but it's not the same. It may seem trivial, but it's oddly dispiriting. Aesthetically, it's the difference between elegant simplicity and ripping apart one's memories; between quaint and clinical.