08 Sep 2011
Posted by Sam Lavin 
Said the person purchasing Foam Shapes, "Only a dollar? That's a real bargain for something I don't need or actually really want at all."
Human beings in all cultures have a connection with symbols. Some are obvious, some are intuitive, some are arbitrary, some are esoteric, some are archetypes, some are religious, and countless are deeply meaningful. Carl Jung said that our unconscious speaks to us in symbols while we dream. I’m disappointed that I wasn’t dreaming when I found a genuine symbol of the cash-poor-credit-happy spending orgy of the late 20th and early 21st century.
And so I commit to you, for sale, Foam Shapes. For one dollar.
Foam Shapes are exactly what the name implies. They are literally shapes made literally of foam. And they cost one dollar. American.
When you ask a mountaineer why he/she climbs a mountain, the common response is, “Because it’s there.” The makers of Foam Shapes may give the same answer if you asked why someone would buy Foam Shapes. The upsetting part is that the Foam Shapes makers wouldn’t be wrong. If you put a box on a shelf marked Foam Shapes in a store, people will buy them.
So if a person buys Foam Shapes, what do they do with them? My very best educated guess is that they put them in an out-of-the-way place — like a kid’s room for example, or a drawer — and never see them again. Foam Shapes most likely end up in the trash pretty quickly along with the rest of our petroleum-based household objects. They aren’t durable. You don’t often hear, “I’ve had that cast-iron pan for 22 years! It’s as tough as Foam Shapes!”
These particular Foam Shapes are apparently bookmarks. Is there a rotating stock of Foam Shapes that have different functions? Maybe like the Foam Shapes High School Diploma or Foam Shapes Tax Clearance Certificate? Anyway, we’ll stick with the topic of bookmarks for now. I understand a little about marketing and the demographic Foam Shapes is geared for doesn’t really need a bookmark. As it turns out, very few 13-month-old children can read.
My point is that, instead of throwing Foam Shapes in the trash, you can skip the middlemen, and throw a dollar directly into the trash. United States paper currency is made from cotton and will biodegrade much quicker than Foam Shapes.
