[…] I’ve often thought about the idea that what if every time we buy something (I don’t mean a dress or shoes or a piece of land, I mean everyday things like a gallon of milk) you bought an extra one and put it in reserve. Over the rest of your lifetime you’d accumulate these things that have a lot of cultural information on them.

About 30 years ago a friend of mine was moving to Canada and she gave me all the junk from her apartment and there was this jar of Vaseline. […] Over here on the side as like a big, “come on to buy this” it says, “PLASTIC JAR!” But it’s not really ancient because it has a zip code on it. Anyone my age will remember zip code stands for “zone improvement program” and there was a time before zip codes!

It’s almost gone, I think it’s got about four months left. […]

This belongs in The Drugstore Museum

Exhibited by Nina Sandlin

Transcript edited by Sarah Crawford