Topic: Not really what you think

[6pairsofshoes]

In addition to misheard lyrics like "My Body Lies Over the Ocean" that I've mentioned in a separate thread, there's always strange confusions about stuff that I find funny.

A friend of mine once mentioned that she thought the man on the box of Lipton Tea was the postman.  Why?  Who knows?  I had to explain that he was actually a sea captain who sailed to China for the tea.  Of course, now he's disappeared from the box.  Who knows why?

Here he is, for sale on Etsy, because what isn't for sale on Etsy?  https://www.etsy.com/listing/592931889/vintage-lipton-tea-advertising-sewing

[dweez]

White suit always made me think of a milk man.

[goldshirt*9]

I had to explain that he was actually a sea captain who sailed to China for the tea.  Of course, now he's disappeared from the box.  Who knows why?

Possibly because a certain part of society thought it was wrong to have him on it

[6pairsofshoes]

Yeah.  PC gone mad.

dweez, he kind of does look like the milkman.  Not quite Reid Fleming type milkman, but the milder less drunk kind.

[8ullfrog]

I wonder what misconceptions I hold. I help my mom with a lot of them, and it's always interesting to figure out where they came from.

I doubt I'll ever get her to call tortillas tortillas though, she always calls them shells. While that would be accurate for hard shell tacos, she always means the large flour tortillas for burritos, and if I'm not the one buying, she gets hard taco shells and gets mad.

as a kid, I always thought we were related to the Quaker Oats quaker. We're neither Penn's nor quakers, but our family share a lot of those facial features. Turns out he's William Penn, of Pennsylvania.

My Grandpa resembled a thinner version of him, sans hat and wig.

As to etsy, there is some crazy stuff on there, like Frasier 64 for the Nintendo 64. (It's just a label on a random cart)
I'm always checking etsy for an SNES mousepad. I left mine at a cousin's house in 1994, and every time I've found one, it's got kid damage. I want a pristine one.

[6pairsofshoes]

That's pretty funny about the Quaker and your Grandfather.

I googled SNES mousepad and found lots, but I'm not sure if you were looking for a particular graphic?  I live in a place where people are always putting used tech on the sidewalk, so if I stumble on one that isn't eaten by kids, I'll send it along.

[8ullfrog]

It's a specific pack in from the super nintendo game, Mario Paint. it's a hard plastic mousepad with a grid.

There's one on Amazon for $130, but they hide the majority of the surface. Even then you can see scuffs.

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

[6pairsofshoes]

Thanks.  I'll poke around and see if any show up.

[8ullfrog]

Twice I've been told I have to buy a CIB (Complete in box) sight unseen to get it. 

It's not a particularly useful bit of hardware, I just keep an eye open for it. Sometimes Deseret gets weird old stuff.

[smokester]

I had to explain that he was actually a sea captain who sailed to China for the tea.

I knew he was a cabin boy on a ferry crossing as Lipton was taught about in my school due to a Lipton supermarket being on the corner of my road, but I always thought that his cap was a motoring cap.

Mind you, we were taught that Thomas Lipton bought an egg and sold if for the price of 2 eggs. Then he bought 2 eggs and sold them for the price of 4 and so on. Don't think there's much truth in that but if did teach you a little of entrepreneurship.

[6pairsofshoes]

Wow.  I just looked up the Wikipedia entry, and the teas are from Ceylon/Sri Lanka, so whoever that guy was, he wasn't sailing to China for the tea.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipton

I also was unaware that this was part of a larger retail company that basically sold groceries.  So Lipton set up a supermarket chain in the UK.  It reminds me of the store where we used to shop when I was a child, the A&P.  It was the main grocery store in our area until larger chains moved in.  A&P was the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company.  My grandmother once referred to it as the "tea store."  It was established in NYC in 1859, selling tea and coffee.  It became one of the largest chains in the U.S. but eventually declared bankruptcy in 2015 and the last stores were closed in 2016.  I remember finding a photo of a woman shopping at Jackson's of Picadilly at the time they were closing their retail store in London.  I think it was more like Fortnum & Mason's, a high end specialty food shop.  But it's curious to think about food distribution and the central role that these beloved caffeinated beverages played in how these chain stores were set up, since they largely affected what and how we ate. 

[smokester]

Wow.  I just looked up the Wikipedia entry, and the teas are from Ceylon/Sri Lanka, so whoever that guy was, he wasn't sailing to China for the tea.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipton

I also was unaware that this was part of a larger retail company that basically sold groceries.  So Lipton set up a supermarket chain in the UK.  It reminds me of the store where we used to shop when I was a child, the A&P.  It was the main grocery store in our area until larger chains moved in.  A&P was the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company.  My grandmother once referred to it as the "tea store."  It was established in NYC in 1859, selling tea and coffee.  It became one of the largest chains in the U.S. but eventually declared bankruptcy in 2015 and the last stores were closed in 2016.  I remember finding a photo of a woman shopping at Jackson's of Picadilly at the time they were closing their retail store in London.  I think it was more like Fortnum & Mason's, a high end specialty food shop.  But it's curious to think about food distribution and the central role that these beloved caffeinated beverages played in how these chain stores were set up, since they largely affected what and how we ate.

The Lipton's down the road from where I grew up was like a toy shop to me. I used to ask for the big boxes they used to leave a the front of the store, and with those and a reel of Sellotape, I had a car, a spaceship, a boat - you name it, I made it.

Not much has changed in my life, to be honest.

A store named Mac Fisheries then opened near it which was a much larger supermarket. Then Tesco's, Sainsbury's, The Co-Op emerged and those smaller chains disappeared.

Couldn't find an image of the old Lipton's, but I found this record:


 

[6pairsofshoes]

Those are lovely memories, smokes.  It's also strange to see how changing retail spaces shape our perceptions of a town.  The local BlockBuster video on the busy corner a few blocks from our house is now a Pet Foods Express.  I wonder where you bought pet food before there were these dedicated chains?

I had a bird and bought mine from the store where I bought the bird, but it was a specialty bird shop that only marginally catered to other pets (cats, mice, rats, dogs, etc.).  Most of the chains only have a few items for birds.  I guess there's always WalMart, but I don't shop there very often.

[8ullfrog]

My dog was picky about what he ate, but the dedicated pet food store would look at me funny when I bought Pedigree. Like I was a bad person.
It just happened to be my dog's favorite. When my aunt shipped him out, she included a few packets.

When he got really sick we transitioned him to iams, which is what we fed our minpins. He recovered, and now he's an iams dog.

I have to get it at walmart, the hoity-toity dog food store refuses to stock iams.

[6pairsofshoes]

I thought iams was supposed to be a good brand.  But as I haven't owned a cat or dog in years, I'm basically ignorant.  I bought pricey stuff for my bird, but those are other brands.  One of those had to be kept in the fridge because it was so special.  The bird really liked cucumbers.  No particular brand.  And leafy spinach.  Once I went to an Albertsons when we were traveling and tried to buy 2 spinach leaves for him.  They were from the salad bar.  The weight wouldn't register so the checker told me to just take them.  He liked them fresh.