Behold the ubiquitous COFFEE STIRRER
Capitalists, among their many reasons and schemes for making a profit – struck gold with the coffee stirrer. A search through recorded history shows many implements being used to stir things, including the sacred morning coffee. The idea of a dedicated item being so universally accepted as THE instrument as a coffee stirrer, so incredibly cheap to make, the simplest to design with an incredibly huge profit margin, must warm the ice-cold cockles of any capitalist’s heart.
Like with most things man-made, there has been an evolution. Perhaps it all started with sticks – mayhaps the ancients discovered using cinnamon sticks to flavor their morning joe and stirring in a dollop of goat’s cream to boot. If they did, you can be certain that someone immediately started collecting the bark, rolling it and selling the sticks!
Come we now to our day and age. Those alive during the time when the very icon of American industriousness and mercantile spirit, McDonalds, switched from handing out a plastic spoon (120 Billion used in the U.S. of A alone each year and over 200,000, 000, 00 in India each year), to the renowned and infamous “McDonald’s coffee stirrer spoon”, or inevitably, “McSpoon”.
“McSpoons”
These have entered the annuls of history, and not quite a few noses as the then cocaine transporter of choice. This despite the Corporate protest that McSpoon was never used for such a nefarious purpose….but they did stop producing them, trying first to flatten the spoon part and then abandoning the concept altogether for the flatten’d straw served out today.
No matter the Corporate stance, the legend, and the actual product persist and thrive in popularity – and profit for fortunate few who stockpiled McSpoon, even though presumably, they were at least somewhat re-usable.
Witness, one of the pantheons of commerce, Ebay, from one of the several auctions going on today, including one currently at $142.00 for a pure silver and gold reproduction:
In our house, we use two implements for stirring, I use an actual metal, or even plastic spoon and my bride carries on the simpler is better tradition by using a drinking straw- which I dutifully gather up and discard every day. So we are doing our part to carry on the tradition of capitalism, or at least profit for someone else!
The return of Carson.... 