The expectation when we purchase a product is that it will perform at or above our expectations. Sometimes, that isn't exactly what we get and to disastrous consequences. Other times the products exceed our wildest imagination and take on a life of their own.
Such is the saga of products which have, over time, passed through my life and the lives of family members whom I hold dear.
When we were just kids, Momma had done all of the shopping and everything was put away after a typical station wagon load of grocery purchases and errands. Late that night, we all realized to our dismay that she had forgotten to buy the TP. She was pretty sad about it too, with visions of 'alternative wiping materials' flashing through her head and toward the linen closet.
So Daddy dutifully went to the one store that was open that late at night, which was a truck stop that also had some grocery items. This was a real emergency and price was no object! We needed relief!
Price is ALWAYS an object to Daddy. He grew up during the Great Depression and learned firsthand what it means to make sacrifices and choices that meant the difference between what HAD to happen and what was just a nice idea. Money conscious and careful in his purchase, he returned home to us - the crowd of people hopping on one foot while waiting patiently for our turn in the bathroom - with the treasured paper.
He opened the paper shopping bag to reveal BROWN toilet paper which proudly proclaimed that it was made from recycled paper. (Needless to say, the jokes about THAT issue were profuse...just what kind of paper had they recycled to give it that dubious color?)
It had, and I am NOT making this up, little bits of what can only be described as bark and wood slivers visible in the weave of the coarse paper.
The strange part was that these rolls of TP was almost as rough as sand paper, it had NO perforations to tear it and it (almost) required your foot on the roll to rip off the paper in your hand. Have you ever tried to stay balanced atop the potty while placing your foot delicately on the roller to steady it so that you can apply all of your strength to rip off a piece of TP sufficient to the task at hand without rolling off of the toilet seat and onto the bathroom floor?
Talk about 'Industrial strength' TP! This stuff was made to last!
This was the early seventies. Recycling and saving the planet all while hugging a tree was in vogue. However, the quality of this particular product didn't enhance my opinion of saving the planet anything. It gave me more than a bit of pause about the alleged 'biodegradable' indicator on the label.
If it was this hard to rip off the roll, it might well NEVER decompose and generations of archaeologists of future times would have a museum piece to rival whatever is discovered in Ancient Egypt! I just didn't want to know about it...
Us girls decided that truckers must have less sensitive hind parts than most of the rest of the world. Since the truck drivers of the world are on a tight schedule and seldom sleep, it only figures that they are not the frilly type who would secretly squeeze the Charmin.
But all homilies aside, the toilet paper saw us through until a more adequate purchase could be made. Daddy kidded us and grumbled that we used 'a lot less toilet paper' and we could save a bundle of money if we kept buying that brand. He had this theory that we used entire rolls of TP for each bathroom trip.
Well, Dad...you DO have 4 females in the house to counter the 2 males and a dog who obviously isn't interested in how soft ANY toilet paper might be...
But this isn't the end of our saga of money saving and cost effective purchasing that neglects the comfort factor. Oh, no.
Cantrece.
All I have to do is say the word and watch my older sister dissolve into a helpless fit of laughter.
Cantrece No-Run Pantyhose.
Yeah. Now that's a great idea, right? Uh, not so much.
After weeks on end of purchasing new hose for one or the other females of the household after each church service, Daddy went to David Lee's on the Square. This place had adequate clothing and accessories. If you didn't care which decade they came from and were only concerned about prices. Naturally, this is the point in which we enter the story. I don't want to give you the wrong impression. All of the clothing and other items we were given while growing up were modest, decent and trendy. But they were not meant to be budget busters. With a houseful of kids to feed, clothe, provide medical care and braces for, Daddy and Momma had to pinch pennies until Abe Lincoln not only screamed, but passed out in frustration. We were considered "well turned-out" when it came to our attire. But there were times that fashion and reality clashed.
Enter the Cantrece No-Run Pantyhose. Guaranteed not to rip, sag, run, tear or wear down at the heel, these pantyhose most certainly seemed to be a harried parent's dream! To a teenage girl...try nightmare.
They came in one color. A reddish Beige.
NO ONE IS BEIGE!
NO ONE!
Not even the lovely mannequins who adorn the ladies department and upon whom some hapless sales girl had actually placed a pair of these guaranteed sure-fire sales winners. I just want to know, did the mannequin like the fit...?
But I digress...
Now, the object of purchasing these packages of hosiery was to stop the red ink from flowing across the balance sheet based on emergency purchases of hosiery. They were, after all, guaranteed for full replacement or your money back if they ripped, ran, snagged, tore or wore down at the heel.
I want to meet the evil person who designed them. They lived up to their guarantee all right.
They were made out of cloth that can only be described as a type of sandpaper, light grade, suitable for exfoliating your legs while you walked. They were beige and matched nothing in your entire wardrobe, including your skin.
Nothing deterred them. Fingernails couldn't penetrate the weave and no amount of yanking or pulling would destroy their beige wonder. Week after week, these hose lived like a Frankensteinian monster on two legs. They would not die!
Now, we were grateful to have pantyhose. But we were also conscious of the fact that there were other colors, other weaves and softer material. But sadly, these brands DID run, snag, rip and tear.
So the Cantrece pantyhose lived on...and on...and on.
I don't recall when they finally gave up the ghost or under what circumstances.
It appears that I have some sort of mental defect there. Perhaps I drank some Milk of Amnesia or something.
But I do know that eventually, the "L'eggs Eggs" made their way into our lives followed by the little plastic envelopes of "No Nonsense" and a host of other brands.
Now that we are all adults, the only thing that I know for sure is that if we ever want to have a discussion that dissolves into hilarity at the drop of a word, all we need say is 'brown TP' or 'Cantrece'.
Don't you wish your childhood had been so rich?
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