Colour negatives don't last forever. Unless kept in airtight, light-tight conditions, their colours fade. To make this worse, the colours don't all fade at the same speed, so printing new pictures from decades-old colour shots has the potential to deliver some psychedelic results. They're first afflicted by a kind of analogue rigor mortis, becoming brittle, and easy to crumble or snap. You might never notice this stage if you don't touch them from year to year, as they eventually soften up again - so much so that they start to get sticky. At this point, they either fuse into a single plastic lump, or adhere to the envelope they're packed in. There's not much you can do to resurrect your precious memories after this point.
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