My daughter is mad at me because we don’t have any tissues.
“Why can’t you be a normal mother?” she yells. “Why don’t we EVER have napkins or paper towels? I swear to great God in heaven (she’s dramatic; it’s genetic) that if you stop buying toilet paper I am moving out!”
She’s right, to some degree. There are two things I just cannot bring myself to pay good money (ANY MONEY) for:
1. Paper Towels, Napkins or Tissues.
My kids enjoy pricey assorted cheeses and artisan bakery breads, but they have to blow their noses on their sleeves. I like my salmonella where it belongs – ON THE SAME CLOTH I WIPE MY CHILDREN’S FACES WITH. It’s called immunity building, people.
2. New underwear for myself.
I still have underwear from when I was married in 1996. It started out as cotton most likely, but now resembles a gossamer butterfly wing. Wait. That sounds too pretty. They are more like the wing of a half dead moth who flew into the bug zapper, then fell in a glass of warm stale beer on the patio. I cannot understand why people pay $15 a pair for what are effectively elastic bands and cocktail napkins. (And I think I’ve been clear about my feelings for household paper products.)
But a few days ago, my outlook changed and to the delight of my daughter, I had a paper products/personal undergarment epiphany.
I was gathering some things at home while getting ready to run some errands. Our washing machine is on the fritz and so I have been washing our clothes at the Laundromat. I had collected all the dirty laundry and placed it on the stair landing along with a broken fan and some movie rentals that had to be returned. When I got to the customer service counter at the department store, I explained that the motor on the fan smelled like it was burnt and it didn’t work. I then pulled the fan out of the box to show the clerk.
Six pairs of my “on their way to be washed” underwear went flying out of the box. Some landed on the counter where I could quickly retrieve them, but one pair landed on the floor behind the clerk. They were THE WORST PAIR; the pair SO BAD that they dreamt of being as good as the ones your mother warned you not to wear, in case you were ever in an accident. THAT PAIR settled directly on top of the cash register.
I got $28.37 back for the broken fan. No questions asked.
I bought a package of paper towels and three pairs of new underwear with the money.
9 Comments
July 17, 2009 at 10:21 am
Oh my god Jeni, that is hilarious! Was your daughter just as mortified as you?
I know what you mean though, I hate paying for paper towels, etc. too. It seems like such a rip off!
The underwear though, I like to splurge on those every now and then. It makes me feel good about myself.
I miss working with you, you are too funny.
July 17, 2009 at 10:38 am
Way too funny! Seriously we need to get together for a coffee because I feel like you are telling my life story—except for the paper towels—I have an addiction to using paper towels. I need help!
July 17, 2009 at 4:27 pm
OMG! My MIL said to me about a year ago, “why can not remember to buy toilet paper while you are at the store?” My reply, “because I don’t eat it.”
July 18, 2009 at 5:16 am
Man, I wish I had thought of that one when I used to complain about the monstrous amounts of TP my kids used to go through!
July 18, 2009 at 5:21 am
Being an ‘old fart,’ I probably have under garments older than you. But I’ve got to have my paper towels. How else can I give the appearance of soaking off some of the grease from all the fried stuff I’m actually using to commit suicide?
July 18, 2009 at 10:15 am
Hey, thanks for visiting! Chuckling over the underwear reference. I FINALLY bought some new workout ones when the old ones were literally falling apart. I won’t even mention the bra I had for 8 yrs.
July 20, 2009 at 12:06 pm
I love paper towels!! Haha… this is hilarious.
July 20, 2009 at 7:50 pm
LOL! I laughed so hard I cried – I could just SEE my mother and my grandmothers talking about the “car accident undies.” (fell onto your blog by way of the blogher PR blackout comment you wrote – which was also HILARIOUS so I had to stop by). – Aly
July 21, 2009 at 5:39 pm
I’m with you on the underwear thing…why is that so hard to spend money on?!?
I’d rather take that money and spend it on paper towels.