Tag: toilet paper

“Can You Spare a Sheet, Please?…” Julia Louis Dreyfus

Who doesn’t love a good conspiracy? The juicy kind that makes the rounds on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook or Substack. Everyone is weighing in with a fury and writing madly about their take on this new mystery.

I can only imagine what would have happened had we had social media during the Kennedy assassination, MLK or Bobby?

Kennedy’s assassination as painful and excruciating as it already was would have been unbearable. It was already fraught with a cornucopia of theories from which to choose. And yet still to this day do we really truly know who ordered that hit? Not really for certain. Will we ever? Probably not.

It’s like the Hoffa disappearance and the yearly discovery of his remains, or a million other explosive stories that make the rounds constantly. Most just foolish imaginings, some with a grain of truth, but too little evidence to be considered proof.

We all remember the pandemic I believe. Hard to forget actually, although it’s difficult to imagine it was already six and a half years ago.

I actually have a conspiracy theory I haven’t really shared with anyone, but I will go out on a limb here and lay it all out.

Yes, we suspect that Fauci indirectly gave the Chinese money to create a deadly virus in a Wuhan lab. I don’t think anyone was really buying that wet market boloney.

So if that was really part of it, and that’s a big if I admit, it seems pretty likely there was one entity that would profit big time by its creation. Dada! Big Pharma of course. I mean in every crime show they always tell everyone to follow the money. Can you line up for a poke please?

Guess it does seem likely they may have not been all that upset about the whole COVID thing.

But, and here’s a big but, there were also others that profited unimaginably by the pandemic.

Amazon for example. Lauren Sanchez and her plastic surgeon are now reaping the benefits of that windfall. There wasn’t even any living without that daily ring of the bell. And let’s face it we never really broke that habit.

Okay, so what’s my new theory that no one has really explored? Drum roll please! There are four. Yes, that’s right four suspects I am currently checking out with gusto. And they are: Essity, Swedish hygiene and health company that produces tissue lines globally. Kimberly-Clark, the American corporation that produces Scott and Cottonelle and Procter & Gamble that makes Charmin, one of the biggest market shares in consumer paper goods. Let us not forget Georgia-Pacific that turns out Angel Soft and Quilted Northern.

Aha! So now maybe you’re thinking this broad isn’t so crazy. About this anyway.

Let’s face facts, may we? How many people had the shot? Sure, tons. But how long will they continue to have it?

See? Big money maker, but temporary.
I suspect not only is everyone continuing to order TP, but they have had a priority shift about the product as well.

It was like a sense of desperation set in. The constant counting of remaining rolls. When to reorder, how many? Searching for new places to store those giant boxes filled with what became the undeniably most coveted necessity ever.

If a family ran out of potato chips sure there would be complaints and grumbling. Or ice cream, or the basic daily food groups, like chocolate. I imagine there may have been a revolt or two even in the calmest of families.

But could everyone survive without chocolate for a day or two until the next Amazon van pulled up? Well, everyone but me of course. Sure, not life or death for anyone.

But toilet paper. Are you kidding me? Unless you have a bidet, which is something many now have seen the wisdom of possessing and invested in.

I dread to imagine the chaos had there been a shortage. Many of us remember the Seinfeld episode when Elaine tried to borrow a sheet from the stall next to her.

I’m not being crass or trying to be as gross and disgusting as Prince Harry about this subject. I’m simply saying these four companies racked up some pretty significant profits in 2020.

Kimberly Clark up over four billion, Georgia Pacific over six billion, Essity up 11%, Proctor and Gamble up over ten percent just in the U.S. alone.
So our follow the money theory, although it also applies to others like Amazon and Netflix, is not looking so crazy now. I mean Shtisel alone made Netflix that year. Although I must admit I believe Netflix innocently profited from the windfall which continues to this day.

I can’t swear for the toilet paper kings over there. And although I’m not accusing them of anything, I must point out the strange coincidence between being homebound and the worldwide run on toilet tissue.

To this day, I am paranoid about running out. I order twice as much as I used to just in case. Am I the only one still in a toilet paper hoarding PTSD mindset. I don’t think so.

No one ever thought or entertained any fears about a shortage, now many do.

So if Greed is good, Gordon Gecko must be busy trying to create another scary virus to amass and expand his fortunes.

I guess as we grow older, we realize some of those old timey adages we heard as children might actually have a great deal of validity.

So yes, the early bird is still catching the worm, all that glitters isn’t gold and an ounce of prevention is for sure worth a pound of cure, even at today’s prices.

And whodda thunk that the boy scouts would be the philosophers of the ages? Yep, “be prepared” wins the learn-it-the-hard-way lesson now.

Oops gotta go, Amazon is outside delivering a box of Godiva.

How The Hell Did I Get This Old?

oldladydrinking

How The Hell Did I Get This Old?

If I ever get my hands on Father Time he’ll pay big time for schlepping me kicking and screaming into the so-called Golden Years.

Did you ever notice that life is like a roll of toilet paper? The closer you get to the end the faster it goes. So you’re asking yourself if I’m comparing life to toilet paper, which would be the obvious conclusion and yet you’d be wrong. Life is far more complex than paper and the ability to explain or analyze it as a phenomenon is for wiser minds than mine.

However that said, life isn’t without its moments of perplexing and insufferable crap, but I shall choose the high road and say that as one nears the end of the journey we are left with a conundrum…if we were given the chance for a do over, would we?

So as we face the goldest part of our golden years filled with wisdom, experience and a sheer and flagrant who-gives-a-damn-anymore attitude are we truly prepared to jump back on for another ride on the scariest merry go round of all, youth?

Of course most agree that another shot at life would be counterproductive if we couldn’t do the do over with the information we’ve garnered from this ride, so I’d probably wonder if it were worth making that journey without benefit of what I’ve learned and even a few lifeline calls to a friend along the way.

Not sure I’d want to go through natural childbirth again, but I hope next time around I’d opt for an epidural from their conception until they finish high school.

Ah, but would I, you see that’s the rub, because who’s to say one wouldn’t make even worse decisions than before and find an even more challenging life waiting as we begin again?

And of course what a journey it is and the trite and misguided belief that we’d do things differently given the chance doesn’t hold much water for the simple reason most of us never do when we are given the chance every day.

That’s the catch of course. We wake up each morning more wise and experienced than the day before, at least that’s the theory, and yet most of us cling to the same paradigms and behaviors that have created our lives.

Larry David one of the most gifted and out-there comic minds of my generation took on this topic on Seinfeld in the fifth season. Entitled The Opposite, Jerry proposes the theory to George Costanza, “If every instinct you have is wrong than the opposite would have to be right.”

In simplicity there is genius. Of course when he enacts this new mindset his life changes for the better and all is well for George.

Yet, although this seems like a great solution done in a comic forum, we actually are faced with this choice each day. In the end it can work to a degree, but the problem may be that just doing the opposite is not always an option.

Not every choice in life is black and white, up or down, yes or no. So many of the decisions we make are sideways and complex, requiring so much more than a simplistic way of thinking.

Doing the opposite doesn’t mean choosing one thing over another because it can also pertain to behavior choices.

If you walk down the street with your head down, perhaps you might try lifting it up, saying hello and smiling at passersby. I’m not certain that would change your life, but because someone may have needed your smile that day to make a life changing decision of their own it was a good decision. May even garner you a few positive karma points.

So in the end often what we do doesn’t just affect us alone.

If we have the chance for a do over every day of our lives how many actually embrace the opportunity? Since I can’t find any study done on the issue I’ll surmise not many.

Every experience in our lives is the opportunity for change and growth. A lesson learned either to be embraced or discarded and we make that choice constantly.

The answer to whether or not you’d live your life over isn’t yes or no, it’s have you been doing that already.

I’m a firm believer in instinct. That little feeling or whisper in the pit of your stomach that tells you when something isn’t kosher. Of course so many of us just tell the voice saying, “don’t do it,” to shut up and go blindly ahead only to regret our decision later.

What in the world would ever make us think that simply coming back into the world starting anew would be different, whether or not we had prior knowledge?

I’ve heard people say, “so and so has great instincts.” So begs the question did they actually hone them or were they some sort of cosmic gift to allow them to make better choices. Perhaps it’s a bit of both in the end, but I do believe that it’s never too late to change.

I as many others have made some pretty pretty bad choices in my life and of course we all pay a price. Very few of us escape unscathed from our own bad decisions yet too many continue to act on instincts that have proven unwise in the past.

I needn’t list them because I have neither the time nor enough memory in my computer, but we all have our own little box of bad choices to rummage through.

Since I’m actually so much older than I ever thought possible I’ve decided to use my situation for the best. From now on I’m opposite Norma and I shall indulge myself in a bit of an experiment. When faced with a choice I’ll simply ask what would I usually do and create an option quite out of character. Will it work? Who knows, because in the end I believe some choices are made for us somewhere in some cosmic storehouse that contains the road map for our life. Yes we have free will, or do we? That’s a question neither old Norma nor opposite Norma would even attempt to answer.

So because getting old allows for a what-the-hell attitude toward life, I’m game for most things now. Although there’s tons of new scary stuff out there in this crazy world I have to remind myself it’s no different for any generation.

We are all born into one world and wind up leaving another.

So have fun and try something new or choose not to, your choice.

Getting old has many benefits, not the least of which is not giving a damn what anyone says and doing exactly as you choose. We fear no one and we ain’t afraid of no ghosts.

Just don’t tell your children what you’re up to and have a ball.