Remember The Old Style Pop Tops?

"Blew out my flip flop, stepped on a pop top.  Bruised my heal had to cruise on back home", according to words of Jimmy Buffet in the song Margarativille.  So what exactly is a "pop top"?

Well, it's what you see in the picture here.  Pre 1980s, this is what you pulled from the top of a beverage can to welcome the carbonated contents.  If you're old enough to remember these things, you're old enough to remember what a nuisance they were and how they littered the land and created a hazard to bare feet everywhere, hence the lyric, bruised my heal had to cruise on back home.  They were'nt always fullproof either.  If the loop was separated from the tab before the beverage was opened, well, often times it meant you were going thirsty.  The "tab" that you see now replaced "pop tops" sometime in the early eighties and we are forever thankful for that.