Monday, July 18, 2011

Bring back the handkerchief

Mistakenly thinking that today was International Ice Cream Day (when in fact the third Sunday in July is America’s National Ice Cream Day), I bought V some Häagen-Dazs. I missed the festival, but the ice cream was still tasty. This also got me thinking how smart it would be to lobby the government for a national day for your product.

Someday, perhaps, there will be an international handkerchief day. Once I’m the highly-placed distributor and promoter of handkerchiefs, I may even lobby for it.

You see, bringing back the handkerchief, or hanky as it’s more affectionately known, is one of my life plans. It should have been on my bucket list, or even on my high school yearbook: Anita will bring back the handkerchief (instead it said something about planning to work with deaf children - which didn’t quite come about).

Why the hanky, you may ask?

1) It is environmentally friendly. If people are willing to use cloth diapers on poopy baby bums, I don’t think blowing their noses in cotton squares should be a stretch. Unlike dirty diapers, used hankies don’t stink and can be tossed in the wash on any old cycle.

Also, think of all the trees that are felled and the chemicals used to bleach and soften tissues so we can fill them with our snot and toss them in landfills. Then there are the boxes and plastics which package the tissues, the transportation to stock them at local stores... Switching to reusable cloth hankies could be your gift to Mother Nature this year, and to our future generations.

2) Hankies have much more personality than a bleached box of tissues. We used hankies all the time when I was a kid, and I remember the big plaid ones my dad and other men used, the smaller white ones my mother had, and the more colourful, patterned ones my sister and I used. I learned to iron with hankies. My friends and I embroidered little flowers on them. Hankies can be monogrammed, personalized, stylized. They have flair.

Have I convinced you? Get in touch – I have a bag full of hankies from India and am looking to seed the market...

1 comment:

  1. We love hankies here on Garrison Street.

    And sorry for misleading you about International Ice Cream Day. I'm sure the ice cream was still appreciated.

    ReplyDelete