More than what it seems

Someone gave me this salt and pepper packet years ago. He picked it up from a flight - back when airlines actually fed you. I laughed from my belly before stashing it deep in my camera bag and forgetting it existed.

The camera bag bears a bit of explanation: it's my equivalent of a woman's purse (and before you ask, I'll confirm that I do indeed carry my wife's purse when she asks me to.) It's a lovely big blue Tamrac bag with zillions of little pockets and compartments. In addition to my precious Nikon and its assorted lenses and doodads, it's big enough to hold envelopes with pictures and the various papers I use to capture the semi-schizoid thoughts that were racing through my head the moment I tripped the shutter.

Despite my best efforts to keep it neat, there are some areas which seem to swallow really tiny things, which then don't resurface until years later. This condiment from the skies seems to have spent a few years in the cozy confines of The Bag, and recently made a reappearance when I rearranged a couple of foam inserts to accommodate the digital camera.

All I can think whenever I read this is how wonderful it must have been to work for a company whose leaders understood the need to inject a little humor into the world. It's just a silly little package. But it speaks volumes about those who facilitated its release into a supposedly conservative business environment. I hope those folks are still cranking out smiles to this day.