Wipeout

My wife is wipe happy. Not being near as cynical as me, she pretty much falls for any new kind of product marketing scam that comes about. You must have noticed the proliferation of wipes. They are the outgrowth of the moist towelettes that you used to get after eating ribs or something. Now they are everywhere. Any product that you used to be able to buy in a spray bottle and then use with a cloth or paper towel, can now be purchased as a "wipe" Essentially they are presoaked paper towels.

The above photograph clearly demonstrates wipe madness. This is from a web site called PetSafe that sells pet products. They have 10 different types of pet-specific wipes including ear wipes, eye wipes, toothpaste wipes, muddy paws wipes, rabbit & small animal wipes, top and tail wipes etc. If you own an animal, I guess you must get them all, because it just wouldn't be right to wipe Fido's tail with the same product you are wiping his ears with. And you certainly wouldn't want to wipe his teeth with the same thing you wipe his eyes with. Yuk.

In my house it all started with baby wipes (Note that like Colgate, there are many different flavors). We went through thousands, and yes, they were pretty convenient. But now we have Windex wipes, Murphy's wipes. Pledge wipes, Lysol wipes, Clorox wipes, Stainless steel cleaning wipes, 409 wipes, Armor-All wipes, and probably 20 other kinds of wipes.

I'm not even sure why they suck. They are really very convenient, I guess. It's much easier to grab a Windex wipe than to grab the Windex and a roll of paper towels. The main reason they suck has to do with my natural suspicion that these companies are making a killing on them. A package of Windex wipes costs as much as a bottle of Windex, and although I haven't done any scientific research to prove this, I would bet a bundle that there is a hell of a lot less than a bottle of Windex used to make a package of Windex wipes. So where does all the money saved go? Right into the companies pockets, no doubt.

The other reason they suck, is that while the first couple out of the package work fine, by the time you get past halfway, they are always too dried out to work. So now you end up throwing out half of the already overpriced package. And I'd love to know exactly what the difference in ingredients is between doggie ear wipes, and doggie tail wipes. They are probably all just dipped in water, anyways.

Then we have something that is even more ridiculous, called Swiffer wipes. Essentially it is a package of throw-away dust clothes. Of course my wife snapped these up too, because its just so much easier to grab a nice soft static free cloth out of a box, than to go get a rag out of the basement when you need to dust. And then you can just throw it away when you are done.

4/15 UPDATE
More wipe madness today. I have to vent to you my dear readers, because the wife gets mad at me when I point of the ridiculousness of this shit to her.

So I'm cleaning off the patio furniture in time for Easter. Using the old-fashioned method: a sponge and a pail of soapy water. It's working perfectly fine. Until my wife comes home from the store. "Oh, hold on. Look what I got." Fuck no! A $5.00 can of Outdoor Patio Furniture Wipes. Another $5.00 for 1 ounce of some soapy liquid soaked into paper towels. Don't you know I just this week wrote a 500 word essay of why wipes suck! No thanks. I'll stick with the sponge.

Then tonight: "Can you help clean the appliances?" And out come the Stainless Steel Wipes. Of course they are too dried out to work, even though the package is still half full. But she just happened to have bought a new one when she bought the Patio Furniture Wipes. Another 5 bucks. So into the trash go the dried up, half full can, and out come the brand new package. Might as well use them liberally, because by the time we need them again, they will all be dried up anyways.