Source: Wikimedia Commons
In 1974 a great many American families bought things in exactly the opposite order from the way we do now. You paid first, in instalments, and the store…
Source: Wikimedia Commons
In 1972 the variety store on the main street had oiled wooden floors that creaked so you could hear where everybody was, and the goods were in open…
Source: Wikimedia Commons
In 1974 the school store was a hatch in a corridor wall that opened for ten minutes before the bell and again at break, and was shut and…
Source: Wikimedia Commons
What the Number Is Actually For
Source: Wikimedia Commons
The number on that sticker is a Price Look-Up code, and the clue is in the name: it exists so…
There are two different kinds of date printed on food, they mean entirely different things, and the difference is not intuitive from the wording.
One is a manufacturer's estimate of…
The little plastic tab holding your bread bag shut is one of the most quietly engineered objects in a supermarket, and the colour of it is not decoration.
In a…