First, a confession.
I never buy pocket-size Kleenex. I know I am contributing to the demise
of the Union of American Facial Tissue Workers, which is a subsidiary of the
Congress of Home Paper Product Laborers, and throwing a lot of people out of
work, but I can’t help it. It’s
hereditary. I learned at my mother’s
knee to be ready for any emergency by filling my pockets with paper napkins
from restaurants.
Generations on my mother’s side have been restaurant napkin hoarders. Worse!
They used their ill-gotten paper products to filch other restaurant
offerings. For instance, my mother couldn’t resist a restaurant bread basket as
long as she had a napkin in her purse.
When I was a lad, my grandmother took me to a fancy ladies
tea shop in Boston that featured a bowl of sugar cubes to be added to tea cups
with silver tongs. It also featured,
alas, cloth napkins. Not to worry! My grandmother had brought along a large
paper napkin from another restaurant into which she tonged all the sugar cubes
for later home use. I was mortified, but
I also began to learn my trade at tea that day.
A few years ago, my brother and I were out together when I
pulled a paper napkin from my pocket for some reason. He gave me a questioning look and asked if I
always had pinched paper in my possession.
I confessed that I did and that I had learned it from our mother. Hadn’t he?
He said that he had missed that lesson, but then sheepishly showed me
the container of dental floss he had secreted upon his person. I must have been dozing during that lesson
from mom.
I make it a point of pride not to wear clothing with the
name or logo of manufacturers displayed on them. If Gap or Abercrombie-Fitch wants me to
advertise for them, I figure they should pay me or at least give me the
sweatshirt for free. Now that chain
restaurants are printing their logos on their napkins, I find it more and more
difficult to fold my liberated paper so that the name Starbucks or Subway can’t
be read by the general public. (Of
course, they did provide the paper to me without charge, unless you count the
cost of the cup of coffee or sandwich.
It’s quite an ethical conundrum.)
I remember an occasion when I had a document notarized. After the obligatory thumb print and as the
notary was reaching for a Kleenex for me to wipe the ink from my thumb, I
casually wiped the ink off with the sleeve of my Levi jacket. She was appalled and was very glad to see me
leave. But, what could I do? I didn’t think a tissue could hold up to the
task and I had run out of paper napkins.
Once, I vowed to kick the habit. I bought a twelve-pack bundle of pocket-size
facial tissue packets, which languishes in a closet to this day, except for one
packet which disintegrated in my pocket for lack of use. The napkins that I
continued to hoard were always my first choice, saving, I told myself, the
official facial tissues for public emergencies or damsels either in distress or
suffering the sniffles.
Okay, it’s a little eccentricity that I submit to. I’m actually cultivating other eccentricities
that have much broader implications.
(Don’t ask me about raspberries.)
I can quit anytime I like. I have
no great aversion to Kleenex or Puffs; I use them at home all the time. I’ve thought about buying another twelve-pack
of pocket tissues, but I’m just not ready yet.