Hobbyists who collect barf bags | Hacker News Reader

Hobbyists who collect barf bags

cnn.com

40 pointsAmorymeltzer30 comments

My high school physics teacher collected barf bags from students who would bring them back from vacation.

It was a neat addition to the classroom, and especially fun whenever a former student would stop by with one from an exotic airline.

He was well liked :)

I wonder when those stopped being commonly stuck in seatback pockets. They used to be pretty much as universal as the safety card. I don't know the last time that I've seen one. (I'm sure flight attendants have a stash but they're not automatically at the seat any longer as far as I can tell.)

Wonder if I still have any in my travel memorabilia I have going back many decades.

As someone who gets sick often on flights, I'd like to know the same.

Domestically, Jet blue still packs them. I think they’re better at avoiding turbulence these days.

I'm sure the reduced turbulence is a big reason. Both aircraft design and better information to avoid areas of turbulence. I just should know the timeframe and just never noticed. (Presumably some point between the 60s and 80s/90s.)

I believe it’s been within the past 20 years, likely as a result of the improved navigation and weather systems, rather than purely improvements to planes.

Source: have flown on older retrofitted planes without barf bags.

I remember the bags. What I don't remember is hearing the sound of anyone using them, and I have crossed the Atlantic at least 50 times. And I would also say the flights have gotten quite a lot smoother since the DC-3 I flew on in the 70ies.

You'd be hard pressed to hear anything on a plane if it weren't happening right next to you. The background noise is very loud.

I once spent a transatlantic flight behind a poor lady who barfed every 5 to 10 minutes for 10 hours straight. Probably something she ate. Hope she’s alright.

Hmm, I just flew American Airlines last weekend in a 737 and there was a barf bag in the seat. I've always found them when I looked.

Wikipedia has an unsourced allegation that "The UNIX-HATERS Handbook" came with a barf bag in the back cover [1]. The book itself is an amusing glimpse into computing history even if it is rather dated and polemic.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_UNIX-HATERS_Handbook

I’m not sure it’s an “allegation” when tens of thousands of us have a copy with said barf bag.

I had a small ( I did not fly much) collection of those as a kid because I thought it was kind of a funny thing to do. Amazing that it's an actual 'thing'...

Great article to come across on a friday afternoon, the first paragraph is a great hook and had me laughing too.

Was waiting at a drive through coffee recently with the dog in the front seat. She needed to vomit right as I was about to pull up to the window. Just happened to find a small paper bag from lunch, or something, and was able to get everything cleanly in the bag! A dog snout fits more cleanly into a bag than human I think, but have never needed to use one myself.

One time I caught a barf with my hands from by sweet little baby dog. Saved a cleanup of the carpet but I would’ve preferred a bag. Just had to wash my hands afterwards.

What if I design a barf bag and get it made, would I then have an item which is worth $$$ to collectors?

Barf bag here means “airline barf bag”.

Unless an airline would use your design, yours would be just a “barf bag” and I doubt colletors would be interested.

So maybe not for collectors, but what about hipsters?

Find a barf bag supplier, have the Pan Am logo printed on them, stick them on Poshmark, and let the easy dough roll in.

They totally do licensing deals

http://www.panambrands.com/

https://negosh.com/brand/ab4a5a2c-1e2c-4462-a6ad-f82f2f61421...

The barf bag is such a specific artifact of human advancement. Consider all that had to be accomplished in order for it to exist: the triumph of aviation, the incomprehensible global infrastructure of commercial flight, and finally, the neat trick of inventing something people can throw up in that isn’t too threatening to keep close by.

I really love how this is written.

Same. It reads like a podcast.

The guy from Maine reminds me of another Maine native I know of in the business of collecting odd things; there’s a lady who would sing you a song while playing her accordion on Peaks Island as you walked into her museum of umbrella covers.

I “collect” them to keep in the car when kids are motion sick. However, I strongly suspect they are made with a PFAS coating to waterproof them.

Thank God they’re empty at least. You really never know these days with all the weird things people do on the internet for clout.

I'm not so sure. I imagine that sick people grab the bag, try vomiting, and if that sort of fails put the bag back into the back of the seat.

In the last image of the article, is the plastic medical emesis bag inside out?

Sure looks that way. Usually the lip on the plastic ring is at the top.

Yes, the idea is that after being used you twist it and then "lock it" into one of the little notches.

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