What Color is this Wrapper?

The Grape Tootsie Pop Conundrum



And now for something completely different.

I've developed a little family ritual. Every Friday evening (outside of Lent) I bring home Tootsie Pops for all the kids. Lord help me if I should ever forget.

It actually started with Starbursts a long time ago, but I started to worry about our potential dental bills (Starbursts can just about pull your fillings out). I suppose it all began as a sort of end-of-week celebration, but maybe this little indulgence is a subtle insurance policy too. Maybe it's a way to make sure that at least one of them says something nice about me at my eulogy someday. "Dad was a real bastard, but at least he thought about us enough to deliver with the Tootsies every Friday..."

Well, while handing some Tootsies out recently I referred to a grape one as "the one in the purple wrapper." My daughter T looked at me incredulousy and said, "Dad, that wrapper is blue!" And so the controversy began....

I insisted the wrapper is purple and T insisted it's blue. In between peals of laughter she explained to me that males tend to be more color-blind than females, and anyway, men at my age tend to start losing the ability to discern colors accurately.

I take umbrage to this. Just a few years ago I took a still-life drawing class with charcoal and pastels at the Danforth Museum. I don't think my instructor thought much of me as a draftsman but she did tell me that I was a superb colorist. Most of my classmates weren't envious of my drawing ability but more than a few of them were envious of my ability to blend pastels together and reproduce colors exactly.

Besides, as I explained to my daughter, still convulsed in disbelieving mirth, why would the Tootsie people wrap a GRAPE-flavored PURPLE pop in a BLUE wrapper? Couldn't she see the logic of my position? I guess not.

Am I color blind? If I ask for impartial answers on this, I know I'll probably lose the debate. Now look... I know that it clearly isn't this color. It's just as obvious, however, that it isn't this color either. It's more along the lines of this color. The thing is, what do you call it?

I'm willing to concede that one might want to call it a bluish-purple, but I'm afraid that most people will say it's a purpley-blue.

If so, I declare that purple doesn't get enough credit as a color in its own right. I remember when the LA Lakers basketball team and the LA Kings hockey team wore purple jerseys they called "royal blue." Royal blue my eye... Those shirts are purple. Of that I'm sure.




Marcel Dionne in a PURPLE royal blue uniform