As I pour a fresh pot of coffee down my thermos, I'm reminded of all those thermoses (thermi?) which have come before.
I honestly couldn't say what the very first beverage I ever drank out of a thermos was, but my gut says Kool-Aid. I distinctly remember picking out an Aladdin Partridge Family lunch box on that inevitable Back to School trek to our local K-Mart. I came ever so close to the outdated Star Trek model, but uncooler heads prevailed. Inside this seemingly indestructible casing was a matching thermos, complete with full-length drawings of Susan Dey, my future wife. I'd never seen a thermos up close before- it was still one of those Space Age deals. I eagerly screwed off the lid... the cup... the lid AND the cup. Darn, those astronauts are clever.
A brand new thermos has one of those distinctive smells, like a new car or grandma's bathroom. I looked at the shiny aluminized innards for a good long while. This thermos and I would share beautiful moments together- a steady companion in the uncertain world of second grade. As long as Lori Partridge was within my grasp, nothing could go wrong.
About twenty minutes later, something went horribly wrong. I grabbed a marble from the floor and casually dropped it down the gullet of my new thermos. In a moment worthy of the second choice Star Trek lunch box crew, all heck broke loose. The sides of the thermos lining shattered, followed by a sudden explosion as the hull was breached and the vacuum of space claimed the remains. My Susan was a shattered collection of glass shards and broken dreams. The trip back to K-Mart was deafeningly silent. The store was completely sold out of Partridge Family thermoses, so I had to settle for what remained on the shelves.
Anyone know if a 1972 vintage Holly Hobby thermos is worth anything?
