T is for Tissue

 or Is it Kleenex?

I guess the dream of every marketer is that their product becomes so successful that it becomes a household name, and even better, the brand name becomes the generic name for the product. Kleenex is one of those things. They are actually Kleenex tissues. I know one person who calls her tissues Scotties for Scot's brand tissues that she uses. However, Scotties has not caught on the same way that Kleenex has. Here are a few other examples of brand names that have become generic for a product that I've taken from an article by Mental Floss.

Ping-Pong 

Ping Pong was trademarked in 1901 as a brand of table tennis products named for the sound the ball makes when it hits the table.

 Sharpie

The permanent marker was invented in 1956, but the Sharpie wasn’t introduced until 1964. Today, the products are almost synonymous with one another. Back when I was growing up, my permanent markers were referred to by the brand Magic Markers.

Band-Aids

Johnson & Johnson manufactured gauze and adhesive tape separately until Earle Dickson had the idea to combine them to create Band-Aids for his accident-prone wife.

Dumpster

Dumpster is a brand name, which is true, although the word has become largely genericized and the trademark is not widely enforced. The APA has even dropped the recommendation to capitalize the word. The Dumpster got its name from the Dempster Brothers Inc., which combined their name with the word “dump” to create the Dempster Dumpster.

 Xerox

Xerox has been trying to stop people from calling photocopying "xeroxing" for years. "Use Xerox only as an adjective to identify our products and services," said a 2010 print ad, "not a verb, 'to Xerox,' or a noun, 'Xeroxes.' Something to keep in mind that will help us keep it together." It's only in the last couple of years that I find myself saying copying more than Xeroxing.

Formica 

If not made by the Diller Corporation, you should call it a decorative laminate. I went to school with kids whose grandfather invented Formica. They were one of the richer families in town.

GED

The GED is certainly the most famous of the high school equivalency diplomas, but this one is trademarked by the American Council on Education.

Seeing Eye Dog

Technically it's only a Seeing Eye Dog if it's trained by Seeing Eye of Morristown New Jersey. Otherwise it's a guide dog.

Did you know that all of these were associated with a specific brand? I didn't.

S is for Safety

I am a reasonably safety-conscious person. In some areas, it's easy for me to be that way. For example, I'm uncomfortable with heights, so you won't find me standing too close to the edge of a cliff. Where I don't have a natural fear, I read studies and listen to experts on safety recommendations. Of course, there have been many discussions over the last two years about safety procedures and the coronavirus, but I won't go into that here. I'm going to talk about bicycle safety instead.

We didn't have bicycle helmets when I was growing up, and most kids survived without them. And because of that, many people have the attitude that if it was good enough for me, it's good enough for my kids. 

However, my kids did grow up in a time with bike helmets, and I made them wear them for a few reasons. First, it was recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics, and secondly, they were required by law. Both were based on safety concerns for head injuries. On top of those, my sister worked at the John's Hopkins trauma center, where patients would come from around the country for an evaluation and treatment plan. She was on a team that helped do that.  My sister saw many bad head injuries from bicycle accidents where the rider was not wearing a helmet, and she begged me to make sure that my kids wore them. So if I had been on the fence before, she definitely convinced me of their importance.

I was having this discussion with one of the other mothers in the neighborhood one day, and she told the story of how her daughter had a bike accident, and the helmet saved her life. In fact, the local police used her helmet when they would give safety talks to drive home the point of their importance. But here's the part I didn't understand. Her daughter rode her bike all the time without her helmet, and her mother didn't bat an eye. 

That wasn't me. So were my kids the weird ones because I made them wear a helmet? Did they protest? Yes, but sometimes you have to be the grown-up and do what you think is right.

R is for Red

Here are a few red things I found on a quick look around the house. I was going to go outside to find some more, but it was cold and windy, so I stayed inside where it was warm. Here it goes for R is for Red.

I like to start the day with a smile. However, I'm not a morning person,
so I enlist the help of this one sometimes.

Last fall, I made a collage about coronavirus. This is one of the "viruses" on had on it.

You saw this bedside clock recently. We have one with red numbers because
red light is not very bright but is still readable. I learned this by seeing
Ward do star watching with a flashlight covered in red plastic wrap.

The poinsettias have added new blooms since Christmas.

The males in the family like all kinds of hot sauces, but this is
perhaps their favorite. I find all of them too hot for me.

This is a Sunday School pin I got when I was a little girl. 

The Legend of Mammy Jane by Sibyl Jarvis. This book takes place close to where I grew up in West Virginia, and I have friends who knew the family it was based on. The writing style is unpolished, but the story is compelling. It has been a favorite of many over the years. In fact, my aunt has a tradition of rereading it every July since it came out in 1981,

When you look around, what is the first red thing that your see?

Q is for Quordle, Hurdle, and Wordle

 Are you participating in the Wordle word game phenomenon? It's a simple online game in which you get six attempts to guess a five-letter word. With each guess, you get feedback on whether or not the word you tried has any of the letters in the word of the day and if they are in the correct position. It was released in October 2021 by Josh Wardle, who first developed it for his partner. The game took off like crazy, and just a few months later, it was bought by the New York Times in January 2022. I think the brilliance of the game is that there is only one puzzle released every day, so there is no chance that you can binge play it. 

I was a little late to the game and started to play about a month ago when Miss Landers showed it to me. I quickly became hooked like everyone else. When I couldn't get enough of Wordle, (forget this one word, one game per day) I started to play Wordle 2, a knock-off of the original that has you guessing a 6-letter word. Not surprisingly, Wordle 2 has had to change its name to Word Hurdle. And because two of these games a day were still not enough, I started to play Quordle, which has you solving four five-letter words simultaneously.

 However, I am trying very hard not to try any of the other 40 or so copycat games out there because I don't need any more excuses to spend time on the computer. So when I finish my online word games for the day, I sate myself with an old fashion pencil and crossword puzzle book.

Do you like word games? Do you play Wordle or a similar game?

P is for Pill bugs

Pillbugs, or roly-polies, as some people call them, are small, 11-sectioned bugs that curl up into a ball for defense. They are arthropods and are more closely related to shrimp and crabs than insects and worms. But this is recent knowledge to me. For most of my life, I thought of them as bugs. And that's what I thought when Theo took a liking to them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armadillidium_vulgare

When he was a toddler, Theo went through a phase where he was fascinated with pill bugs. We had an abundance of them around the edge of our patio and Theo would pick them up and promptly put them in his mouth. We did everything we could to discourage this, but he persisted. One day I saw that he had a dozen or so in his mouth, and I shouted to get them out of his mouth. And do you know what he did? He promptly swallowed them all. I guess I should have been more specific about what I wanted. 

However, I've recently learned that they are edible and taste like shrimp. Maybe if I had known that then, I would have cleaned them up and let Theo eat all he wanted. But then again, maybe not. We don't eat manly insects in this country, and it just seems wrong.

Have you eaten any exotic insects?