clips, clips, clips

Before getting married, I worked part-time as a demonstrator. What I did was lug 4 pots of brewed coffees, cups and condiments and set up my table at various grocery stores around Oahu and also at ABC's in Waikiki.

It was quite a rough job, having to lug everything around by myself, standing up for 3 or 4 hours at a time, no bathroom or food breaks. Everything had to fit in my two-seater, which usually only left seating for me. But it was a great job, I got to learn about how to brew coffee, how to taste it and how to sell it. Another thing that was great was all the people I met while giving out samples. Sure, there were those who just wanted something to wash down the cookie samples, and others who had some coffee with their cream and sugar, but there were others who truly loved coffee and loved to chat with me about it. There were even "regulars" who would come and bring me pieces of candy or take some of the cookie samples and give them to me. These people helped me kill time when sales and traffic were slow.

Then Starbucks came into Hawaii and gave all the local brands a run for their money. Back then, I was anti-Starbucks wouldn't drink or go into their stores. Now that I live in Japan, Starbucks is the only place I can enjoy a decent cup without distraction from the smell of tobacco or annoying smoke. But whenever I go home to Hawaii, I always pick up bags of Lion, they make good omiyage (souvenirs) for family and friends here in Japan.

The reason I'm writing this is to talk about the clip that comes with the bag of coffee. While I was with the company, the clips had raised designs and came in many different colors. I was disappointed to find that the clips have recently lost their raised designs, probably due to cost cuts. Can you see the difference?

With recycling and all that, I wanted to share some of the ways that I use them. The most obvious way I use them are for open bags of tea or chips.

I've also used them to make a hat holder--tie a string between two clips and use one clip to clip onto your hat and another clip to clip onto you. Your hat will stay with you even if the wind blows it off.

My most resourceful way happened quite accidentally when we first moved to Japan. Whenever you move into an apartment or house in Japan, they do not have curtains or curtain rails. Without curtains up, you can see everyone and everyone can see you. Not having curtains is also kind of a sign, if you don't see curtains up, most times it is because the apartment or home is vacant.

So, when we first moved to Japan, there were no curtains in our apartment. Luckily though, there was a curtain rail. Since I needed something to block people from seeing into our apartment and also from having the sun shine brightly in, I took all the clips off of the packages of coffee I had packed for us and attached a paper clip into each hole at the top of the clip. I then clipped the long beach towels I packed and voila! we had curtains to tide us over until we were able to buy some.

Does your coffee or tea come with a clip? What do you do with them? I would love to hear about the ways you use your clips.