This past weekend I went to visit Carrie Furnace near Pittsburgh, huge steel furnaces that were built in the 19th Century and operated into the 1980s, which are now a national historic site. Barney, the excellent tour guide, told a story that popped into my mind as I read this.

He had a group of older men taking his tour who had worked in a steel mill together before most of the mills had closed when the US steel industry collapsed in the 1980s. All of the men were calling one individual "Spaghetti-Os", after an inexpensive canned pasta product popular with childern. On his first day on the floor of the steel mill, this gentleman was asked what he had for lunch, he replied that he had a can of Spaghetti-Os, and a co-worker told him to set it with the other cans of food on top of a hot pipe, and it would be steaming and ready to eat at lunch time.

The new worker stuck his can up with the others, but he had neglected to open it first, and in the middle of the shift it exploded and showered every one on the shop floor with Spaghetti-Os and tomato sauce. The man told Barney that he had spent 30 years in the mill being called "Spaghetti-Os", and still it continued. So here is a guy that made a simple mistake, got branded with a silly name, and ended being a unwilling fool the rest of his life.