Dymo Might
A friend recently told me that he had some microscope slides he wanted to share with me after we had been talking about some research I am involved with. He presented me with two nicely crafted wooden boxes that were precisely made with tiny dove tail joints. The lids fit tightly like a well crafted box lid would.
I was impressed by the collection of two-hundred slides that were directly related to my research, however my mind was taken off on a journey when I took a closer look and feel of something on the front of each box.
On the front of each box was my friend’s name on an embossed plastic label. Back in the 70s, long before computers and dot matrix printers, we made our labels with a Dymo machine. Those of you who may have been born after the mid 80s may have no idea of what I’m talking about, but it was a hand held device into which a plastic strip was fed. You would dial a letter and squeeze the handle. This action would emboss the letter on this plastic strip. Then you would spin the letter wheel and emboss the next letter and so on until your label was finished. Then you would cut the label, peal off the back and stick it where you needed it. At that point it would bubble up and peal off in an hour or so or it would be stuck on forever.
Just seeing the embossed labels on these boxes took me back to my youth when I went around labeling everything in sight. I’m sure there are still some of those labels stuck around my mother’s house.
posted by The Guy Who Writes This at 4:00 AM
10 Comments:
Oh, I hear you on this one! Another thing I had so much fun with, 'lifting' newsprint and comics off pages with Silly Putty. I dunno...I haven't thought of that stuff in so many years, do they still make it???
I loved those things! It used to drive my mother crazy as she went around the house discovering all the "Beth Was Here" labels.
Yes, MissKris, they still make Silly Putty. I have some that changes colors in your hand.
I remember Dymo label makers from the 80s. My mother hammered my name out and stuck a big blue stripe of it on my red Mickey Mouse lunch box on the morning of my first day of school. It's still there, like it was welded into the plastic. Ah, memories!
I love those labelers. My brother and I labeled everything we owned with those things when were kids.
Yeah, what they all said!! I remember we got one for Christmas waaaayyyy back when.
Guy: how do you remember these things when I can't?
Now I feel like a dinosaur for real!! I got one of them things in my drawer that I use alla time. Even got several colors of label tape for it. Comes in really handy for everything from circuit breaker boxes to mail boxes. Always changing something around an apartment building:)
Don't tell my boss, but the electronic version is stashed in my file drawer at work. He thought he broke it and threw it away along with a whole shoe box full of the label cartridges. I fished it out and fixed it so now I can label EVERYTHING!!!!
Kris, better get out and buy some and enjoy the texture and the smell of it...Remember?
Beth, at least your mother know where you weren't.
Jaggy, it sure was an amazing adhesive.
Zoe, sounds like you need to get another one for you and BP.
g, you wouldn't believe all the things I forget. Article upcoming.
Mike, I see a comeback ahead.
Anon, my favorite was the one that looked like wood grain.
Wood grain? Think of all the wood repairs I could have been doing the easy way.
No more wood glue and saw dust mixtures.
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