It occurred to me the other day that I do not know the name of this item. In fact, I do not know if it really has a name at all. All my life, I have been removing these from bread bags and immediately tossing them into the trash where they belong, and I do not know its'/their name.
They're unnecessary, of course. Everyone born with a y chromosome knows that to properly close a bread bag, you hold it up by the empty part at the open end of the bag, give it a mid-air twist, and fold the twisted part under the bag while setting it down on the counter. Problem solved. Fresh bread for all. No unnecessary, let alone unidentifiable, tiny plastic widgets.
But this anonymous little bit of plastic might in fact be a whole market unto itself. At least one company is attempting to make it's name and money by promoting an eco-friendly version. (www.ecoclip.com) To think I have been shamefully adding these to our landfills when I could have been saving the environment the overwhelming burden of an extra ounce of plastic each year!
Stands to reason that if someone is selling these, someone must be buying them. And there you have a whole other job connected with this item--"Hi, I'm Danny Finklestein, Chief Bread-bag Closure Buyer for Wonderbread, Central Region. ...Oh, you heard about the big Ecoclip deal? Yeah, well, I don't want to brag, but that was me."
I just think that if there is going to be a whole industry built around it, it should have a better name than 'bread bag closure.' So I am hereby commissioning the Bread Bag Closure Renaming Contest. I will give the grand prize of $1.00 to the person who contacts me with the best suggestion for a new name for this item. Use of the word 'sphincter' in your suggestion is prohibited. Good luck.
