I See You....

Where are they? What are they? Where did they come from? What are they made of? Why am I talking about this?

Well...

What started as an occasional appearance, turn into my friend Margot's obsession. That obsession found its way into some of her friends. I was one of the victims. Though I have only collected them to send to her, I have wondered of their existence.

While looking in to Taxonomies and Profiling, I came across the Holotypic Occlupanid Research Group. And after thinking about it, they have a closer parallel strings to the other topic I am perusing. These unnameable creatures are a product of industrial society. Where would be we with out bread tabs? Our bread would get moldy, our orange would roll away, our potatoes would have sewn bags, etc. There purpose other than bread tabs are hard to explain. Even for their purpose holding bread bags closed, bread tabs (I know this is blasphemy but) were not completely necessary for society to evolve.

Another site calls them transactoid has a collection of 1000 or so. This is from around 2000 so who knows how much he has now. This is what it is on the site. The site is hard to read:

The bread tag collection process is a long and complex procedure. This explains the seemingly outdated bread tag collection count. The bread tags are harvested quickly from all new incoming bags of milk, orange juice and/or bread. Upon initially discovering the presence of a new bread tag, the bread tag is removed and placed into the Bread Tag Collection Receptacle, or, the BTCR; otherwise known as my pocket. This continues on an on-going basis

the duration of the day. At the end of the day, any bread tags that have accumulated in the BTCR are extracted and assembled onto the Bread Tag Temporary Storage Unit, or BTTSU as we like to call it. The BTTSU provides the means necessary for the bread tags to grow to critical mass. A picture of the BTTSU can be seen below:

Once the bread tags have managed to reach critical mass, they are removed from the BTTSU and placed into the BTCD. This, the Bread Tag Containment Device, safely stores the bread tags for an indefinite amount of time. It is a metallic, cylindrical container capable of withstanding massive impact forces such as dropping it on the floor from several feet or hitting it with an inflatable mallet.

]\Bread Tag Species
]Bread tags are identified primarly by the number of pincers located in the bag containment center. There are subspecies which have varying numbers of gripping pieces. The basic parts of a bread tag can be seen below:

\

Species	Characteristics	Population Notes
	Contains 3 pincers in the bag containment centre. Subspecies I contains no gripping pieces. Subspecies II contains gripping pieces.	Of the 7.1% of subspecies I, 100% are white. Of the 22.9% of subspecies II, 93.8% are coloured. This represents the largest proportion of coloured bread tags. There exists a very rare white variety of subspecies II. This particular bread tag has only been observed once (top left), comprising merely 1.4% of the bread tag population.
	Contains no pincers in the bag containment centre. Subspecies II contains gripping pieces. Subspecies I contains no gripping pieces.	All 2.9% of subspecies II are of the coloured variety. All 2.9% of subspecies I are of the white variety. Research shows that both subspecies I & II exist in equal proportions.
	Contains one one pincer in the bag containment centre. Has no gripping pieces.	Makes up 7.1% of the bread tag population. They are all white; no colour variation has ever been observed.
	Contains 2 pincers in the bag containment centre. Features gripping pieces on the outside.	These make up 57.1% of the bread tag population. 15% are of the coloured variety. 85% are of the white variety.

(These results are based on a random sampling of 70 bread tags)

Bread Tag Facts

• Nov. 27/99 - 458 bread tags.
• Apr. 17/00 - 528 bread tags.
• Oct. 07/00 - 628 bread tags.
• It's 5 months and 3 + 17 days between Nov. 27/99 and Apr. 17/00. Averaging 30 days per month, 5 x 30 + 3 + 17 = 170 days. Now, if we calculate the difference between the bread tag totals, we get 528 - 458 = 70 bread tags. 70 / 170 = 0.412. Therefore, bread tags were accumulating at an average rate of 0.412 Bread Tags per Day, or, Bt/D.
• \Between Apr. 17/00 and Oct. 7/00 is 6 months and 13 + 7 days. That's 6 x 30 + 13 + 7 = 200 days. We have a difference of 628 - 528 = 100 bread tags. Therefore, we calculate the rate of accumulation to be 100 / 200 = 0.5 Bt/D.
• Based on these results, we see an average increase in the rate of accumulation of bread tags.
• If we average our two rates together, we get a new speed of 0.456 Bt/D.
• Based on a rate of 0.456 Bt/D it will take approximately 169.6 days to reach 1000 bread tags.
• Based on these calculation, we should see our bread tag totals surpass 1000 during the later half of June 2001.
• 32.9% of total bread tags are of the coloured variety.
• 65% of such coloured bread tags are of the 3-pincer gripping type.
• Based on these facts, a population of 1000 can be expected to have approximately 329 colored bread tags. 65%, or 213.9 of which will be of the 3-pincer gripping variety.

Bread Tag Terminology

Bread Tag - A small piece of plastic varying in dimension used for keeping bags closed. They feature two pressure tabs used to hold close the bag, and small gripping pieces to assist in easy tag removal.

BTCD - BTCD stands for Bread Tag Containment Device. The BTCD is used to isolote the bread tags for an indeffinite amount of time.

BTCR - BTCR stands for Bread Tag Collection Receptacle. This is simply a holding spot for the bread tags, and is nothing more than a fancy term for a pocket.

BTTSU - The Bread Tag Temporary Storage Unit is a large clip that holds the bread tags until they reach critical mass. It acts as a transition zone between the BTCR and the BTCD.]=

]Bt/D - Bread Tags per Day. This is the unit of measurement used to indicate the rate of bread tag accumulation. A rate of 1 Bt/D indicates an increase of 1 bread tag over a period of a single day.]

Critical Mass - The critical mass is the point at which any further buildup of bread tags in the BTTSU would result in a catostrophic failure of the BTTSU, and result in dozens of bread tags scattered across the floor. This point has never been reached, and hopefully it never will be.]

KBt/D - Kilobread Tags per Day. This represents a buildup of 1000 bread tags per day. Such a rate would inevitably cause a deadly, irreversible chain reaction in the BTTSU resulting in massive death and widespread damage.

One might think bread tabs don't exist because they are not on wikipedia. (Also wikipedia is listed as misspelled on this spell checker.) They are listed as bread clips or bread tags.

The bread clip was invented by Floyd Paxton in the 1950s and manufactured by the Kwik Lok Corporation based in Yakima, Washington with manufacturing plants in Yakima and New Haven, Indiana.

Please check on the side of the blog for more websites and info for the bread tabs/tags/clips.
But please, don't eat them!