I have a very large bottle cap collection that I started back in 1998 or so. I’m somewhere in the 100,000 range of various pop and beer caps. I don’t have a plan for them at this time, so in boxes they sit.

I do have one cap that isn’t a normal bottle cap. It means a great deal to me and I keep it aside with many of my other mementos. I don’t think my wife even knows that I have it. She gave it to me one day while we were dating, and I kept it ever since.

This is from an old Snapple bottle back in the year 2000. When I first met my wife, she had this bottle cap. It was an image she really liked. Within weeks of meeting my wife, she got it tattooed on the back of her neck. She gave me the cap to keep.

It’s the sort of tattoo that only a few select people have seen or know about. Her long, curly hair hides it. I see it all the time and have accepted it as a part of who she is. I can’t tell you why she liked this image or why she chose to get it as a tattoo. But she did.

Keeping the cap is significant to me. It is a small token of our growth in our relationship. The uniqueness that makes us each who we are and where we once were. I still remember how excited my wife was at the time when she got the tattoo done.

Do you have something like this that you have kept over the years? A piece of your past (or someone else’s) that you won’t ever part with? Let me know in the comments. I’d love to hear your stories.