Minnesota Hobbies: What Does Your Can Coolie Say About You

We call them coolies, the foam we put around our beverage to keep the contents cool. We wouldn't need to if we lived somewhere else, but, out of necessity, we need to protect our beer or pop from hot air.

Yes. Minnesota is very hot and humid, especially now, when the temperatures seem to climb in the nineties every day. There are people who claim that we have four seasons in this state. Yeah. I think so. We were raised to think we had spring, summer, fall and winter.

We beg to differ: it's cold, colder, coldest, hot. There are variations to our cool, but our hot is just that. Hot.

When you're hot, you drink something to either cool off or rehydrate.

Being hot, makes one sweat and sweating makes one thirsty. And, everyone, what happens when you are thirsty? Anyone? Yes, you, on the other side of my computer monitor. What is your answer?

What's that you say, you drink something?

Wow! You are very smart, aren't you! Good job. Yes. You are right. You drink something and you prefer, if it started out cold, to stay cold as long as possible.

That is the point of a coolie. It insulates against the beverage getting warmer too quickly.

A coolie is some soft, rubber stuff that just happens to be impermeable from warm air. It keeps the can contents cool.

Plus, as an added bonus, if you look online, you can find places that will imprint them with your own saying. Or, you can purchase them at a gas station with funny or serious sayings on them.

There are other coolies besides the ones I'm currently talking about. There are coolies that go around bottles, and are tall and slender and some come with a zipper.

I have some that are made of hard plastic and look like a fish. Yes, there are shaped coolies. We have one that looks like a medicine bottle and has a prescription on it for drinking. Something like take one every hour.

We keep ours in a plastic bag on the wall of our garage. It's just easier to keep them that way. We used to have them in a drawer in the house, but, it just takes up too much space that I could be using for towels and other important stuff.

Last, but not least, if you do use a coolie, when your beverage is empty, please retain it and recycle it.

Look it up. It takes 26 cans to make a pound and if you save your cans, and turn them in to a recycler, you will be able to buy a new, FULL can of your favorite beverage.

Stay cool!