Back in 2010, during my first six months here in the UAE, I posted an item about how common the “pop top” is here.

Banned in the United States, and many other countries for several decades now.

Talking about that strip of aluminum (aluminium, for our British friends) … that could be peeled off the top of a soda can — opening it for drinking.

Why am I reprising this?

Because someone identifying herself as an American “too young to have seen a pop top” asked if I could take a photo of it. A before (above) and an after (below).

So, I did. I pulled that Coca-Cola Light out of the fridge, posed it on today’s copy of The National’s sports section (that’s Cristiano Ronaldo, for those of you who like looking at him almost as much as he does) … and got one “before” and one “after”.

Two observations about the pop top:

1. I have no idea why I remember this, other than it’s just plain odd, but I went to high school with a hyper-religious guy who had been to a spiritual retreat and had experienced what we now would call being “born again.” When I was in high school, that was not a widely used expression. Not like it would be when evangelical Christians become political power brokers. And, too, Lutherans don’t generally do “born again.” The first time suffices.

Anyway, he wore a pop top as a sort of nasty little ring on one of his pinky fingers. (Still not sure how it would fit.) Why? Had to do with his religious experience, he said, and he liked the reminder of it there on his hand. Maybe he was holding it on his way out the “born-again birth canal.”

2. You actually could get hurt on one. The curled up part, if you stepped on it, could cut. Not that it was likely. Being aluminum (aluminium) it is soft and generally just collapses. I suppose if it landed on its curled up side, that could more easily cut.

The bigger problems with pop tops were environmental. Those little strips of metal here and there, and animals came to bad ends with them. Swallowing them, etc.

Anyway, Jimmy Buffett … he must have stepped on the Mother of All Pop Tops to have “torn up (his) flip-flop.” Let’s just guess and see he was taking dramatic license there.

So, young person … here is your pop top in action.

Enjoy!