A to Z - O

For my A to Z Challenge theme I will be posting items that are no longer with us or are close to becoming extinct.

These are great items to use if you are trying to set a time period in your story or to stay away from if you want your story to be timeless.


Oldsmobile (1897–2004) When I was five my parents sold our family car, an Oldsmobile station wagon. I laid in the back and cried and had to be dragged out of the car.  Looking back at it now I cannot understand why I was so attached to a car.  When I heard that Oldsmobile would be no more I remembered our car with fondness and felt sad for the loss of such an iconic car brand.

Out houses.   I had to use an out house in Italy in 1992 and while port - o - potties are very much like an out house they are not meant to be your main place to relieve yourself as an out house was. Luckily for most of us we have indoor plumbing.

Office, Microsoft 97 Assistant Clippy.  At first blush this was a cute little animated paperclip.  But once you started using the software Clippy would interrupt you with comments like, "It looks like you're writing a letter. Would you like help?"   Clippy became very annoying very quickly. It made assumptions and would pop up and disrupt our work.  I had changed mine to a cute puppy but it was still annoying.



Olestra - If you visited yesterday we discussed the amazingly bad idea of New Coke. Olestra is in the same marketing ball park.  It was touted and promoted in 1996 and then in a few short years it had almost completely disappeared. It is still in some products but very few. Because of the potential side effects, it caused diarrhea and if I remember correctly you were not supposed to let children eat it, Olestra, also known as Olean, would affect the absorption of fat soluble vitamins so additional vitamins needed to be added to the products Olean was in; I also remember my girlfriend complaining about the taste of Olestra products. These may have been the cause of its demise.

Happy writing my friends!