The Ordinary Object With the Strange Origin

A billiard-ball prize that produced plastic, food in cans before anyone had a can opener, a navy spring that walked, and wallpaper that became bubble wrap.

The object is ordinary now, which is why the origin sounds made up. Plastic began as a prize for a better billiard ball. Canned food reached kitchens decades before the can opener did. A spring fell off a workbench and walked. A wallpaper product that failed at being wallpaper became the thing you pop. None of these were aiming at the life they ended up with.

Plastic was the answer to a billiard-ball prize. Canned food arrived 48 years before the tool that opens it. The Slinky fell off a Navy workbench and kept going. Bubble wrap was wallpaper that did not work. Cotton candy was a dentist’s machine, and he sold 68,655 boxes of it.

This page is the shelf those objects share. Start here for the can, the spring, and the wallpaper, and for the longer record of things you use without knowing the first job they were hired for.

• The 'Astronaut Drink' NASA Never Invented — and the Moonwalker Who Said It Sucks
• The Baby Swab Once Sold as 'Baby Gays' — Whose Box Now Begs You to Keep It Out of Your Ear
• The Bread Preacher Behind the Graham Cracker — and the Bakers Who Came to Mob Him
• The Minister Who Lived Next to a Brewery and Invented Soda Water to Cure Scurvy
• The Roman Pocket Sundial Shaped Like a Ham
• The Sea-Monkeys That Hatched a Day Before You 'Brought Them to Life'
• The Astronaut Ice Cream That Astronauts (Probably) Never Ate
• The First Roman Letter Found Near Hadrian's Wall Was About Socks and Underpants
• The Pudding Recipe That Gave Microbiology Its Favorite Jelly
• The Rust Spray Named After the 39 Times It Didn't Work
• The Chemist Who Asked to Be Buried in the Pringles Can He Invented
• The Germ-Fighting Paper Cup Named After the Doll Company Next Door
• The Spaghetti That Stumped Richard Feynman by Refusing to Break in Two
• The Dentist Who Invented Cotton Candy — and Sold 68,655 Boxes of It
• The Floor Cleaner That Taught America to Fear Its Own Breath
• The Grocer Who Hired Fake Shoppers to Push His Invention Around the Store
• The Tube of Paint That Got a Funeral in an English Garden
• The Frisbee Salesmen Who Charged a Dollar for an Invisible Wire
• The Canned Food That Arrived 48 Years Before the Can Opener
• The Kitchen Microwave That Impersonated a Signal From Deep Space
• The 5,700-Year-Old Chewing Gum That Held an Entire Human Genome
• The 3,000-Year-Old Pants That Were Invented for Horseback Riding
• The Billiard Ball Prize That Invented Plastic
• The Crash-Test Foam That Invented Your Mattress
• The Rolled-Up Paper That Became the Stethoscope
• The Secret Rubber Substitute That Became Silly Putty
• The Slice of Cork That Named the Cell
• The Slinky: The Walking Spring That Fell Off a Navy Workbench
• The Strange History of the Ballpoint Pen
• The Wallpaper That Failed and Became Bubble Wrap

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