Rob Schlaff's Website

When I was a kid, every sitcom seemed to have a time capsule episode. The kids would gather at school, bury a box filled with artifacts—a mixtape, a letter to the future—planning to dig it up years later.

I realized that I could do the same for 2020, but as a virtual time capsule—not one packed with sourdough starters and rolls of toilet paper, but a collection of the moments and memories that defined that strange year. And today, March 15, 2025—five years after New York City shut down its schools—feels like the right time to open it.

When we were in London, we went to the fanciest teahouse in the world and were given a pastry fork—a delicate little thing, part fork, part knife, designed for the precise task of slicing through scones and dainty pastries. Sitting there in such an elegant setting, it struck me how much effort goes into creating an air of sophistication around something so simple.

The pastry fork, for all its refinement, wasn’t so different from the spork—an everyday utensil that trades elegance for practicality. Yet here, in this grand tea room, it was presented with an air of quiet authority, as if it held the secret to a more civilized way of eating. It made me think about how much of what we consider refined or high culture isn’t necessarily about the thing itself, but the story we tell around it. As William Shakespeare put it, “Nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

“This is how you hug,” my mother-in-law said to my teenage son. She wrapped her arms around him firmly, holding him tight and lingering just long enough to make her point. My son froze, his shoulders stiff and uncertain, his face fixed in an awkward smile. Gradually, his expression softened as he hugged her back—whether it was a reluctant acknowledgment that Grandma might be right or simply a concession so that he could get back to playing Fortnite.