Please Don't Squeeze The Charmin

Classic video...first she squeezes the tomatoes, then she squeezes the melons and now she's squeezing the Charmin. Yes I am oh so guilty. If Mr. Whipple were still alive they'd surely be dragging us off to jail for endangering public health. I can see the evening news headline announcements: Corona virus infections rise into the hundreds of thousands with over seven hundred deaths in New York alone, tornadoes touch down in the south leaving hundreds homeless during a pandemic but first tonight a major news announcement from the makers of Charmin that they will pull our much beloved Mr. Whipple and his commercials off the air as to not encourage people to squeeze the Charmin during this pandemic. Mr Whipple like millions of other Americans jobs will fall victim to the rising unemployment numbers in an attempt to curtail the spread of the virus. In a major announcement handed down by the board today the makers of Charmin said that with the scarcity of toilet paper they don't want people fighting over it let alone squeezing it.

I was prompted into writing this post after seeing a comment by someone who said he was asked by a shop owner not to touch a product. He said he told the man, "An apparently healthy young man as yourself should be more concerned about nuclear proliferation than the flu" before opting to take his business elsewhere. I replied it's not just about him it's about protecting what he has and protecting the health of others. I admit it's been really hard trying to break the habit of wanting to squeeze my produce for firmness. I have a rather strange criteria for buying certain items, from the look on some people's faces when I pick up bags of potatoes and start smelling them I guess I'd be considered an oddball. Which isn't out of the norm of reality for me but hey what can you say, there's a reason they put all those holes in those potato bags, they wash the dirt off them and pack them wet, the holes are meant to allow air to dry them and they don't always dry adequately leading to rot. I've had a couple people over time with me who've tried it, they frown as they take a whiff and comment they smell like dirt upon which I instruct them dirt is a good thing rot is a bad thing. I guess they'll never come to understand me but there's nothing more disgusting then opening the bag a few days later and having that permeating smell of rot hit your senses and have spoiled half your lot. When I buy lettuce I make sure it's tightly packed, a firm head of lettuce will last three to four weeks over a loose leaf head of lettuce. I'll pick a couple soft ripe tomatoes for immediate use and couple hard not so red tomatoes for later use. So for me it's been hard not to want to fumble through the produce with my criteria checklist.

I am just one of those people who believe anything can happen or it'd just be my kind of luck. I can envision myself watching the news and all of a sudden there I am and the whole city is looking for this lady seen picking up and sniffing multiple bags of potatoes who may be the origins of an outbreak of half a dozen shoppers resulting in one death. At that point my options would seem to be rather limited. I could immediately run upstairs and shave my head and covert over to being transgender, get in my car and drive to some remote region of the country or I could sit there waiting to be forever labeled as the selfish uncaring woman who shut down a major retailer in town and killed someone during a pandemic. Nah, I think I'll just opt not to squeeze the Charmin.