I was watching the Father of the Bride last night. The original with Spencer Tracy and Elizabeth Taylor as father and bride. If you haven’t seen it or the 1991 remake with Steve Martin and Kimberly Williams-Paisley reprising those roles, the premise is that fathers go a little wacky when their daughters and wives plan that most father-unfriendly affair, a wedding.

I bring up that it was the 1950 production I saw because a scene in it made me sit up and say, “Now that’s blog-worthy!” If by the time you’ve finished reading this you don’t agree with me, well, that’s ok, not all of what I think is blog-worthy is blog-worthy but then, isn’t that the fun of it?

Anyway, there is a scene when Spencer Tracey in his attempt to either maintain a little control or save a few dollars decides he will wear his own formal attire, presumably from his wedding 20 some years earlier, rather than buy or rent a new tuxedo. It wasn’t that even formal styles a couple of decades apart are going to be different or that almost everybody’s body a couple of decades apart is going to be different that particularly tickled my questioning brain. Those aren’t blog worthy. Sort of ticklish and predictably funny yes, but blog worthy? It was when he pulled his cutaway from its storage box and a cascade of moth balls poured out across the floor that I sat up and said to myself, “Whatever happened to moth balls!?”

We know moth balls still exist. You can find them in Amazon so they are still real. And we still say when something isn’t used anymore that it is mothballed. Is that because we used to use mothballs when we stored things we aren’t using anymore? Or is it because we don’t use moth balls anymore? Or do we? Just because I don’t have a closet hanger filled with moth balls doesn’t mean all my neighbors don’t.

So I did a little search. That’s when I discovered that Amazon carries moth balls. I also found out that hanging them in closets, tossing them in dresser drawers, and adding one or two or twenty to your vacuum cleaner bag (all things I remember my mother doing about the time Spencer was trying on a 29 year old formal jacket) aren’t top search results for “moth balls.” Instead I found recommendations for keeping houseplants pest free, attics bat free, and backyard sheds mouse free.

I don’t have an attic or a backyard shed and my houseplants are already critter free. On a more traditional note I’ve had real wool sweaters in my closet for more years than I probably should have and still they are not moth eaten and I’m not sure what moth balls do, or did for a vacuum cleaner and see no reason to discover what now. So I don’t think I’m going to jump on a moth ball bandwagon and order a pack or case. Sorry Amazon. But if you have a can’t miss use for those little white waxy spheres, please let me know. Maybe I’ll change my mind.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a twenty year old tux in that closet I’d like to try on. Just in case.