Wipe Your Troubles Away

Not appreciating something until it’s gone can best be found in the bathroom when the toilet paper has run out, and no one is home to help you.

 

That being said, I was shopping for TP at a local Wally World when I felt as though I had stepped into the Twilight Zone; Rod Serling was expected to step out from between the paper towel section and the plastic sandwich bags to greet me.

 

The array of paper products with which to wipe yourself into a sanitary state was mind boggling, to be modest.

 

Price was a driving force to get my attention.  The least expensive TP was clear upon close examination.  It seems the paper is single-ply, so thin you can read a newspaper through it.  ‘Single ply’ indicates how quickly your fingers will pierce through the TP while actually using it to take care of business.  The lower number of plies, the more quickly you will wind up with a second mess.

 

That rule of physics is hard and fast science, and can be changed no more than gravity can be altered.  To counteract the flimsy, one-ply TP, you can simply use more sheets.

 

This is the time when I like to think of Sheryl Crow.  In case you missed it, Ms. Crow, a prominent environmentalist, set the limit for her 2007 “Stop Global Warming College Tour,” use of TP to between one and three squares.  Ms. Crow was under the impression that her delicate bowel movements requiring the use of one toilet paper square was necessary were mirrored in mine; she was wrong.  But, I digress.

 

In any case, rather than buying inexpensive TP simply to experience the exercise of cleaning with fragile paper products, you can go to a Wally World bathroom and use their paper goods.  Saving trees can be better directed by receiving less junk mail.  By the way, those mailers for carpet cleaning or rain gutters are about the right thickness.

 

But, if you ever wondered when the name changes from “toilet paper” to “facial tissue,” it is when the price increases by 50¢ per roll.

 

Eliminating the bargain brands, I quickly found the premium ones that became amazingly baffling.

 

It seems as though you can buy “extra soft,” “extra strong,” or “sensitive,” but not extra strong and soft TP that is sensitive.  I needed to make a choice.

 

Believe it or not, you can even buy “chamomile” TP.  I’m not sure if it is chamomile scented or flavored but, I have other products to make tea and deodorize the bathroom.

 

Now comes the hard part.  Toilet paper is unlike anything else that is packaged.  The premium brands are sold on packs of twelve, eighteen, or twenty-four.  The dozen pack was clearly for the Sheryl Crow-types, who use very little.  On the other hand, the 24 pack was for types like me.

 

Let the ciphering begin!  Twelve rolls sold for $7.95.  This meant the price per roll was 66¢.  Eighteen rolls were $10.95, meaning the cost per roll was 60¢.  At this point I simply gave up and assumed the 18-pack was going to be the cheapest, and because the package stated I was getting 500 extra sheets in this pack – it said so. 

 

Just before my hair caught on fire, I thought about Ms. Crow and realized she may not be as worried about the environment as she is about spending time trying to buy toilet paper.

Too Close for Comfort

Should someone say, “Give me five,” you might be tempted to hand over some money and, you would be dubbed ‘terminally un-hip.”

 

That simple phrase means to touch hands to celebrate, greet, or congratulate.  The “five” refers to the number fingers on one’s hand, and is often called a “high five.”

 

This primitive method of shaking hands is usually reserved for people who are perpetually-hip.

 

Somewhere in the 1970’s, some baseball players touched hands, creating a gesture that would only lead to further annoyances.

 

Little kids would high five adults to the giggles of observers who thought that was cute.  High fives ran rampant about offices, bowling alleys, and sports arenas.

 

It wasn’t long before most men forgot how to shake hands, rather opting for a high five.

 

Fast forward to today – some 35 years later – and we have virtually forgotten about high fiving anyone or anything.

 

Those crude slapping gestures have somehow evolved into – drum roll, please – hugging.

 

Yes, in the event you have yet to be hugged by someone, anyone, you’re in for a treat.

 

I’m all for hugging comely, nubile women because I like humans of the female persuasion.  On the other hand, guys, not so much.

 

Still, men will walk right up to you and give you a hug.  Some guys are sneakier than that, though.  Those are the ones who approach with an outstretched hand.  Once contact is made, they use leverage to tug you against their bodies.  Bleewwchh!

 

I’ll wait while you look up “bleewwchh” in the dictionary.

 

Never being a hugger with anyone except my sainted wife, and Smokey’s 19-year old Swedish au pair, such an act puts me in a particularly awkward position with my body pressed against that of another man.

 

I see benefits in hugging members of the opposite sex; I see no benefits to me with other guys.  This is not a homophobic statement anymore than having a woman balk at hugging an offensive woman or smelly man.

 

Whatever happened to all that ‘personal space’ stuff that was the topic of all conversations with women in the 1980’s?

 

Four-feet were the appropriate distance, if I correctly recall.  Any encroachment was reason enough for a female to break out that relatively new invention, pepper spray.

 

I, too, have personal space that shouldn’t be invaded by anyone except my sainted wife and au pair Heidi. Or any comely, nubile ladies.

 

If you see me on the street, you may shake my hand or high five me.  Don’t hug me! 

Oxy-what?

Every so often we come across words that are together, but don’t necessarily go together.  I mean those ever-so-popular words such as “military intelligence,” “adult children,” “bureaucratic efficiencies,” or “jumbo shrimp.”  Those are known as oxymorons.

 

No, no, no.  You’re thinking of that stuff that gets stains out of carpets and laundry – Oxyclean.

 

Oxymorons are compressed paradoxes that are often entertaining and have crept into modern vocabulary to the point they are now commonplace.  Buffalo wings, chicken fingers, boneless ribs, dry wine, and string cheese.  Is it string or is it cheese?

 

Veggie hamburgers are impossibilities.  Hamburger is made from beef; veggies are not.  Which is it?

 

Resident alien is likely one of the best oxymorons.  If you are a resident, you are not an alien.  Amen.

 

And while you’re contemplating these examples of common-folk attempting to sound intelligent, ponder over a glass of dry wine.  I believe that would be dust.

 

A bird dog is not a bird.  A fox terrier is not a fox. An afghan hound cannot knit – usually.

 

One cannot be found missing, nor can they receive death benefits.  How many people are in a small crowd?

 

I’m not certain a product can be “new and improved.”  Pick one.

 

Perhaps someone could tell me what a quorum is for the loners club.

 

Our beloved leader often takes working vacations.  Now that’s perplexing.

 

Rap music.  Need I say more?

 

My head nearly caught fire when I heard of “synthetic natural gas.”  I beg your pardon!

 

Try making sense of civil war, near miss, and airline food.

 

Try as I might, I am still baffled by and how folks can have phone sex.  Phones don’t have genders.  But, I digress.

 

A “tin ear?”  Perhaps on the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz.

 

Try mulling these over for a while, then submit your own for future consideration in another story.  Thanks for reading!  See you next week.