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Matchbox

When I was a kid, I played with Matchbox cars. Among them was the type with doors that would flip over and display crash damage when you slammed the car against something. The great apart of this mechanism was that it allowed you to reverse a destructive event: once the damage was done, you could erase it by flipping the damaged door so that it was in perfect condition again.

Pretty soon, though, you found that the door wouldn't return to its pristine state any longer. It had taken so many hits that the return mechanism failed. The damage, so to speak, was done. Some of us still played with it, but we could never find the same value in that little car once the most cherished aspect of its existence no longer functioned. In our hearts, we may have even begun to shun that little car, avoiding it for newer, or simply normal-looking, cars.

Now, some of you may be smirking right now, predicting in your minds that I'm attempting to draw a pithy, self-satisfying analogy to the human experience, but I really am talking about Matchbox cars. I hated when you couldn't flip the door back.

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