The Toothpick

When you finish eating at a restaurant and you walk out the door after paying the bill, more often than not, there is a little bowl filled with toothpicks near the exit.  Some people take a toothpick, some people do not, but what a lot of people to do realize is the variety of what kind of toothpick is being held in that little bowl and how many functions it can have.  Take, for example, the Japanese toothpick.  It looks like every other toothpick: made of a light wood, thin, small, sharp; however, on one end, it has a grooved indent and a flat end while the other end it pointy for cleaning teeth.  The serrated and flat end is meant for breaking the end off and using it as a little rest/holder for your toothpick so it does not roll away and does not touch any dirty surfaces.   

The Japanese Toothpick

This is a perfect example of needing to know the small features of a designed object.  Each product has a story behind it and from that story, a need is made, and from that need, a purposeful design is created.  I have used so many of these Japanese toothpicks without ever realizing that they held this “secret” function that now seems so obvious to me once I found out.  It is both clever and useful, and I think one of the main reasons I am writing this blog post about this toothpick is because I found it so amazing that I did not know the function of the end of the pick.  I want to tell everyone because I find it so cool!