The Can
When I told mother about the can, she mused that she should have bought a load of groceries in the 60's and left everything in its packets. Then someone like her daughter would come along forty years later and pay a lot of money for each item.

The can was twenty dollars. I don't think this was a lot to pay for such an item, although my housemate at the time thought it was outright ludicrous, and insisted on pointing it to houseguests as evidence of my slight lunacy. I had spied the can at the retro furniture store around the corner from my house, which sells broken bric a brac for inflated prices and always has a sign out the front announcing its “Two Day Sale” (which has now been going on for at least three years, by my conservative estimate).

One of the best things about the can is its size – it stands at around 20cm tall and holds at least four litres of juice (1 lb. 4 oz. I don't know how much this is in metric weights, and I don't have the back of an exercise book handy to help me with conversion rates). It is heavy to lift, and you can hear the juice sloshing around inside.

The condition of the juice is the cause of much speculation. When I bought it, the man in the shop said the juice would most probably be black, from reacting with the metal of the can. Tim likes to taunt me with the possibility of opening it, if I was in a nuclear holocaust situation for example, and had eaten everything else, even the glue in the bindings of my books. I would only consider opening it if I was definitely about to die. One thing I am sure of about the juice is that I doubt it still has the “plantation fresh flavour” promised on the label.

The can appeals to me because:

a)  I am very fond of pineapple juice
b) Someone kept it, unopened for decades. Why?
c)  The label is printed in a style reminiscent of old cookbooks.
d)  The state of its contents is a mystery.
e)  I like to imagine what life was like when the can was new. SHOCK! Can is not all I think it is! See below.

I am not sure when this is, exactly. After purchasing the can, I considered contacting Golden Circle to date the can. On a trip to The Big Pineapple in Nambour, Queensland, I spent some time admiring a display of pineapple products through history, however this was pre-can, and I was distracted by the climb to the top of the giant fruit.

Someone once told me pineapples grow underground. Other people have laughed at me for repeating this as truth, as if I were suggesting hens lay apples. I decided to consult the World Book. I have no shame about using the same encyclopaedia I used when I was ten for school project. It tells me that I was wrong. Pineapples grow on low, spiky bushes. Now you know too.

UPDATE: I should never have let a digital savvy friend near the can. In fact it serves me right for showing off. At close inspection, Mr Bilateral Petersham tells me that, rather than poor 60s printing, the label is ’poor jpeg compression&rsquo! It is true. My can is merely a prop! A reproduction can of 60s pineapple juice. After the initial shock, this makes me love the can more. Don’t we all try to be things we are not, sometimes?