Handkerchiefs

Is there anything more inconvenient than a common cold? Half the time you have one, you don't even feel that badly -- you're just annoyed at its seemingly endless list of symptoms. For give or take a week, you (1) can't taste food, (2) sleep terribly, (3) have to actually think about breathing, (4) disturb everyone's peace wherever you go with disgusting throat and nasal sound effects, (5) battle a nose that seamlessly and inexplicably fluctuates between runny and stopped-up, (6) can't find a comfortable room temperature, (7) sound like Ben Stein, and, maybe worst of all, (8) kind of look like Ben Stein.

And so, for give or take a week, you have to carry around tissues as if you're on the fringe of an emotional breakdown around the clock. Or you can be a guy with a handkerchief.

Never a handkerchief-type of dude myself, on the surface the idea makes sense to carry that cloth backup in your pocket. And in the breast pocket of a blazer, it can be quite dapper (a word that doesn't get enough play if I do say so myself). But all the allure of a handkerchief is lost when you weigh its deliberate, functional purpose, which is to capture and store your discharged snot.

Yes, that square stitching of 100% cotton was woven with your mucus in mind, covering your sneezes and coughs and batting literal cleanup to your face's many obscene, uncongealed emissions. And, I agree, that is repulsive, which is why I don't keep a snot rag fabric in my pocket. No, no, I'm not blowing my nose and wrapping up the surprise in something that I'll stuff and conceal in my pants, only to reach for it and reuse it later. Once that textile touches my nose or mouth, into the trash it goes. I'm not keen to revisit that released respiratory residue.

With that in mind, handkerchiefs in my world would be used once and then permanently tossed. ASAP. They don't need to linger around, rubbing against and smearing across your clothes, even if only on the inside.

Obviously that approach is not ideal, nor might it be cost efficient. So, I say just stick to a tissue -- and only one use per tissue. We're potentially talking about a lot of tissue here, true, but under these circumstances, I propose wastefulness over distastefulness.

Ditch the handkerchiefs for any reason other than cranking up your dapper factor. Close calls in sports, beautiful women in skin-tight leggings, and your poker hand after the flop all deserve a second look; your phlegm and mucus, however, do not.

Phone Books

There was a time when I relied on the telephone book. It was a time when I also relied on Saturday morning cartoons, Fruit by the Foot, blanket forts, and my imagination. Beyond a few friends and the time & temperature line, I knew no phone numbers by heart and instead flipped the pages of the phone book in a kitchen drawer religiously.

And then the mid '90s came around, and Al Gore single-handedly built the internets in a garage using duct tape, dental floss, and pixie dust, per an article posted on Wikipedia that I wrote earlier today. Suddenly, dial-up service and its fax-machine-suffering-a-seizure sound effects took residence across the globe, as did online chat rooms, thousands of free AOL trial hours on individual discs, and a new breed of textual, sexual predators.

Oh, and every phone number within a few mouse clicks.

The phone book turned obsolete overnight.

So, why do I still once or twice a year come home to a stack -- a stack -- of various phone books outside my door? And how many phone books does a single home need? You have a city phone book, then you have a greater metro phone book, then you have some yellow pages only, then you have what appears to be an entire phone book devoted to an exorbitance of clean-cut, family-owned insurance companies juxtaposed with action hero-nicknamed attorneys. What am I supposed to do with all these phone books -- even if there was no world wide web? Yes, I'm only 5'9", but I don't think I need 14 booster seats around the apartment.

I'm not much for tree-hugging, but I also don't support the needless waste of a natural resource, primarily when maybe 3% of the recipients of that processed resource actually use it for its intended purpose (so, not as a spanking tool for children, a lopsided table corrector, or a massive paperweight for all those gusts of wind blowing through your kitchen).

Yes, I get it, senior citizens and/or those without internet connectivity will be more inclined to welcome these free, alphabetical indices of phone numbers, but does that truly warrant a delivery to everyone with a door? The ratio of phone book users vs. non-users has to be heavily skewed toward the latter. So, why not only deliver phone books to those who express interest? Perhaps instead of dropping off phone books, flyers with a lone phone number to call to get a free phone book can be left at doors ("Like phone numbers and paper? Call the phone number on this paper to receive a whole book of more phone numbers and more paper!").

Ironically, the only phone number of use but not listed in these delivered phone books is one that you can call to request the ceasing and desisting of their delivery.