Why are Those Brown Paper Towels Still a Thing?

The only bathroom brown paper towels should be in...

Let me paint you a picture. Pretend like you’re back in high school sitting there in some terribly boring geometry class with a teacher that has got to be pushing 80. Barely anybody’s paying attention cause, let’s be honest, we all know the answers are in the back of the book. The clock says you still have 45 minutes left and you can feel a small part of you dying. To kill some time you grab the bathroom pass and give a little nod to the teacher, who doesn’t even look up from the whiteboard.

Just that little bit of freedom is enough to lift the mental cloud of the Pythagorean Theoram hovering over you. Making your way to the bathroom you chat with some friends. On your way back you wave into some classrooms to get your friends attention without notice of the teacher.

As you round the corner to go back to class and actively trying to not fall asleep you pass the holy grail. The vending machine. The glorious vending machine. Even though they replaced the normal stuff with their low fat substitutes (which hilariously isn’t even better for you, like do your research people) it’s still a blessed piece of engineering in high school. You pop some change in to get a nice cold bottle of Gatorade praying to god this can get you through the next 30 or so minutes of class.

You hang up the pass and get to your seat impatient for the familiar crack crack crack that comes with opening a fresh bottle of Gatorade. You grab the top and the bottle and twist. It’s a little tough at first so you twist harder and harder still. Until BAM! Shit goes flying! Bottle falls on the desk, the lid goes half way across the classroom. You feel like one of those idiots on infomercials that can seem to pull one piece of Tupperware off the shelf without causing a Himalayan level avalanche.

You grab the bottle and stand it upright with now half its contents on the ground and your desk and feel defeated. Half the class is looking at each other like,”That ever happen to you? No? Yeah, me neither.”

The teacher finally realizes that there’s a kid is having an existential crisis in his classroom and turns around. Being the eloquent and all knowing person that he is, he knows exactly the right thing to say. “Uh, you're gonna have to clean that up.” NO SHIT. I actually was planning lapping it up, or leaving it as a reminder of this momentous occasion, maybe even making an impressionist painting of it later. Of course you never say those things because you don’t want to add to the judgement you're already receiving from your classmates.

Now to rectify the situation all you have at your disposal are the brown paper towels. You know the ones I’m talking about. Brown, shitty, closer to sandpaper than towel, yeah those ones. And now we reach the central topic: Why the HELL are we still using those things.

I get the whole budget cuts to the school system, but really?! We can’t find a more elegant solution to the massive amount of spills and sickness in modern day schools? And why is it even a thing in private business? Buy some Brawny, Bounty, anything. We landed on an asteroid traveling a gazillion miles per hour. Cured smallpox and polio.  We have access to the entirety of human knowledge in our pockets.  And yet we can't get better paper towels?

You try to dry anything with it and you might as well be using construction paper. If you need to wipe your hands you’d be better off air drying that shit. Got the sniffles? Trying blowing it in one of those things, you’ll end up with a bloody nose. What? What was that? You need to stop the runny, bloody nose? “Hahaha” says the shitty brown paper towel. Go use that high school toilet paper? Come to find out the school board took away the two-ply along with the fine arts. Damned budget cuts! You fall to your knees still stuffy, still bleeding, in a puddle of Gatorade and rage.

You think your done? Oh no, not yet. These things follow you after graduation. Its finally the day you’ve be looking forward to since you got that diploma. It’s that beautiful day in August where you get move into your college dorm. You get to your dorm room scope it out. Of course you have to check the bathroom situation. Sinks, toilet, shower, yep looks like a bathroom. Then you see it. The dispenser hanging there, pretending like satan himself doesn’t reside in there. You swear to yourself you’re moving off campus. Next year you get your own apartment and think it’s over with. Nope! Check your academic buildings. You graduate college? It’s in your goddamned work bathroom! You can’t get away from these brown rolls of hot garbage.

How something that is so ineffective in completing their primary responsibility is enraging! How is it literally everywhere?! I legitimately can’t understand it. I wouldn’t take a roll for free, i wouldn’t take 10, if the grand prize of the Price is Right is a lifetime supply of shitty brown paper towels I’d slap Drew Carey (RIP Bob Barker, he’s not dead yet but how 2016 went I wouldn’t be shocked) in the face. We owe it to our children to have better paper products than we are providing. It’s for the kids... and me...but mostly the kids.