I walked the block to the library on my lunch break today to read something interesting. I ended up sitting at a desk (you know, those pod-desks they have at libraries) next to an oldish man who smelled faintly of chewing tobabbo and alcohol. It was a Christina-like awkward situation because I when I came in all the pods had exactly one person sitting at each except one. So I went to that one and noticed one desk had a book and an almost-empty beverage container. It was a gamble: Sit there and assume the person had left, or sit at another pod and look weird for sitting near someone when there was an empty pod?
Anyway it wasn’t that weird except for this other guy who kept running over to the older guy asking to borrow his cell phone. He had knee-length cutoff denim shorts, glasses, a baseball hat and a ponytail out the back. He was calling to see if “she” was coming downtown now that they were off work. One of the several times he walked off with the phone, the older guy muttered, “I’m letting an idiot use my phone.”
I read a book about how the story of the toothpick demonstrates global concepts of culture and technology. I read about 15 pages and could have read more. Read on for awesome toothpick facts.
From “The Toothpick” by Henry Petroski
- Toothpick production was (is?) so secret that even in the late 20th century Japanese visitors to a Maine factory were not allowed inside (3).
- A prisoner at an Okanogan county jail once escaped by diligently sawing through the exercise yard chain-link fense with dental floss coated in toothpaste (10).
- Chimpanzees care for their teeth (and sometimes each others’ teeth) by using twigs and straw like toothpicks (10).
- Toothpicks have been incorporated into jewelry in many cultures since ancient times to easily have on hand after meals (13).
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