Good news—I purchased a bottle of Old Spice aftershave today, and found they had made an almost, sort-of return to the old sailing ship bottles. I mourned the loss of the old ship art some time back, here.

Clearly my influence is greater than I suspected, because now I find we have a new package for “Old Spice Classic.” I looked at their web site, and see no sign that it’s a special edition. It seems to be the new design, and it’s a definite step backward (which is always, needless to say, a good thing).

The new aftershave bottle features the Old Spice name run vertically up the right-hand side, and there’s a teeny-weeny little silhouette of a genuine sailing ship, not the yuppie yacht that’s been inflicted on us over the last decade or more.

Actually, the new bottle is kind of ugly. It’s plastic, not glass, and the ship is a little red silhouette, not the lovely blue line drawing that used to suggest scrimshaw on the tooth-shaped bottle.

But it’s a ship, by golly. I’m gonna stock up, before they change their minds about it.

This, I believe, is a harbinger of better times ahead. Sanity is returning. Our culture is stepping back from the abyss.

I believe this because I’m stupid.