Collectible

While visiting my sister recently, we had occasion to visit a quintessentially-cute small New England town. After browsing the toy store and book store, we entered the wayback machine this really cool shop that was combination antique store and old-fashioned ice cream counter.

Before we even set foot inside, though, I was taken with this gem on the front porch:

It's an old Coke vending machine. Here's another view:

 
Now, it doesn't look that old, does it? I mean, I remember using machines like this. Don't you?  You just deposit your twenty cents in here --

--and go ahead and choose whatever combination of coins works for you. It's flexible.

Then you open the side door and pull your 12-ounce glass bottle of full-on sugary goodness out from right there --

 
--and then you use the bottle opener to pop off the cap.

Oh, wait a minute.

When was the last time you bought a soda for two dimes, a dime and two nickels, or four nickels? One that came in a glass bottle with a crimped-on bottle cap that could only be removed by an opener?  From a machine that didn't dispense "diet" sodas, or 12-ounce cans, or plastic, 16.9-ounce bottles?

Or accept dollar bills for payment?

Yeah. I know.

So I marched inside and said to the nice lady behind the ice cream counter, you know, I remember using Coke machines like that... and it kinda bums me out that you have it out front of your ANTIQUE store! I mean, geez, I know I was born in the 1960s, but... antique??

She looked me straight in the eyes and smiled, and without missing a beat, she replied,

"It's not antique. It's collectible."

Oh.

Collectible, I can live with. But antique? How can anything I remember using or playing with or owning be considered an antique?

Yikes.

And then I ordered a scoop of peppermint ice cream on a sugar cone and ate the whole thing.

The end.

Comments

[noe noe girl]

Oh the memories of days gone by!

[Chesapeake Bay Woman]

Collectible, so that's the new word for it. All these years I've just called myself OLD.

What a great find. Isn't it wonderful when you stumble upon places like this?

Remember the shot of ice cold air that hit you when you opened that door? Remember how much better soft drinks tasted when they were made with gold old pure cane sugar rather than high fructose corn syrup? (I swear I can tell the difference.) Remember crushed ice and paper straws?

OK, maybe the paper straws are more antique and less collectible. Still.

[Meg]

Re: sugar vs HFCS - I'm told by my Jewish friends that if you buy the Coke that they sell as Kosher during Passover, it's made with sugar and not corn syrup and tastes so much better. Remind me to buy some this year.

I have more shots of some funny stuff inside this shop that I plan to share when time permits.

[Suz Broughton]

I want it!