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In July of 2016 for some reason I bought a 1988 Honda Gold Wing motorcycle, and the three main cargo areas are all black inside. The two saddlebags are made of plastic that was born black from the factory, and the big trunk is not only made of black plastic, there's a felt liner on the bottom that's -- you guessed it -- black. Black is the worst possible color because it makes it as difficult as possible to see what's in there. Same with tool kits and tool belts and glove compartments and golf bag pockets and purses and and no doubt other places where you drop random objects in the hopes you'll be able to find them again by looking in there. Last week I lost the black case with my sunglasses in it. I looked in where I was pretty sure I had left it, which was the trunk of the motorcycle, and I didn't see it there so I searched in other likely places, maybe four or five minutes altogether what with having to stop to pet the dog every so often. Still no sunglasses case. So I decided to start over, and in the trunk of the motorcycle there sat that black case, where it had been camouflaged against a black background all along. Why black is the worst. Choosing or even permitting black is a poor design decision for the insides, especially the bottom surfaces, of 99% of containers where random objects can be expected to be placed. Black, pretty much by definition, reflects the least possible amount of light. And black is the best color for masking shadows, which are valuable clues your brain automatically uses to distinguish what you're seeing, even on a white background. And in my exact case my wallet is black, my glasses case is black, the case of my flashlight is black, and the case of my multi-tool is black. These are four of the five objects I always carry in the trunk of the motorcycle, the fifth one being my phone case which is, of course, black. My solution. I decided to make the bottom surfaces of all three cargo areas white. For the two saddlebags I simply layered on a few coats of white spray paint specially formulated for plastic. But the trunk, which is much larger and easier to access and is the one of the three I use 90% of the time, was lined on the bottom with that custom-cut piece of felt I mentioned, black in color, that was eager to hide dark things but also to ease the jarring of things stored thereon. One option was to spray-paint the felt white, but I decided instead to place a layer of some sort of white fabric or other material on top of the felt. So I went to where everyone recommended, Jo-Ann Fabrics in Shawnee, Kansas. There, after considering the options, I decided on a material that's vinyl on one face and some sort of flannel or felt fabric on the other, and of course I wanted plain white, which they did have.
The photograph above shows the white bolt on the bottom and a black bolt of something above it. How much does my white bolt cost per yard, and how much does the black bolt above it cost? Simple questions, right? Your answers are almost certainly the same as mine, which are that the black bolt costs $24.99 per yard and the white, vinyl-faced bolt below it that I want to buy costs $5.99 per yard. Right? My mistake. Well, here are the answers. It's the white bolt that costs $24.99. The price tag of the black bolt is not visible in the photo because it's next to the bolt above it. The $5.99 price tag refers to the bolt, also not shown, below the white one. The tone the saleslady used to inform me of this fact suggested she maybe suspected I was just a little bit stupid not to have figured this out without her help. |
