Tissues

Tissues are amazing things. A bold statement for sure, but also justified.

They clear up the things that no other self-respecting fabric would go near. Okay, a hankie would do some of the same jobs, but if you've still got one of those in your pocket you need to beam back to the 1950s where your sort is still tolerated.

I have a bag full of the little beauties right next to me on the sofa. They're admittedly not so beautiful as they started out, due to the nature of their job, but they've served their purpose well and deserve some respect. I have them in a separate bag next to me, because my nose is in fountain mode and I can't be bothered walking all the way (two metres!) to the kitchen bin.

Besides, it's best the two forms of rubbish don't meet. One is hazardous human waste, and the other is hazardous vegetable waste. Who knows what sort of chemical warfare they may end up producing when combined?

There's not only the tissues you use for wiping your nose, of course. They're just the ones closest to my heart, or throbbing nasal passages, at the moment. No, there's facial tissues for wiping off your make-up, if you use make-up, or toilet tissue for wiping down your toilet or something.

Really, if you were picking a job to be as an inanimate object (admittedly, inanimate objects aren't usually known for exercising their rights to pick things, but bear with me) a tissue is probably not something that would top the list.

As is usual in these situations, the jobs least sought after are the very ones that we would miss most if they weren't performed, yet monetarily value the least.

In the scale of human shopping, shouldn't we spend more on the things that actively make our lives easier and better every day, and less value on the things that leave us indifferent?

If you were to take your average bag of toilet paper, four rolls of thick 'n' long, and stack it up against the moisturiser that you apply every day out of some lame attempt to cheat death, which would you think you should be forking out $1.99 for, and which would you price at $15.99.

Silly, isn't it? If someone were to steal these two items from your household and then extort money from you at point-of-use, which would you pay out twenty bucks for?

Economics is a stupid system that should never be trusted.

Sure, there are high-minded types who would more eloquently say that if the world runs on a system that gives a father more incentive to sell his daughter into prostitution than to train her as a teacher then it's time to get a new system, but you don't need to get as elevated from your normal life as that.

Anyone who's been caught short without a handful of tissue knows that there are some things more important than money. Economics means nothing when you have a handful of thin air, and a noseful of mucus.

But yeah, that human rights stuff too. As soon as tissue is valued appropriately, I'm all for getting that sorted as well.