KLEENEX -- WHAT DID YOU JUST THINK OF?

This struck my eye while I was researching what I was going to pin up to satisfy my thoughts about Kleenex.  I am not a Kleenex guy.  I am a shirt sleeve guy.  With shirt sleeves, who needs Kleenex?  Now, the answer to that becomes a little bit more difficult in the situation pictured on your left.
This all started this morning when the Voice from the Kitchen who has been hoarse and sniffling for three days now asked me to buy some Kleenex on my way back from a presentation that I was giving.
I can't tell you how many stupid things ran through my coconut about Kleenex and what I remembered of them.  One of the things that has stuck with me is the cartoon that I saw when I was a little boy about a baby in diapers who had emptied a full box of Kleenex in the frustration that he developed as he tried to take only one tissue out of the box at a time.  The room was full of Kleenex tissues that the baby had thrown around in frustration.  Try as I might I have not been able to get Mr. Google to find that cartoon for me.  So, I settle for this picture because as my thoughts jingled and jangled through my head today, one actually captured my mother's story about a friend of hers who had been subjected to the indignation of having pigeon droppings besmirch her fine dress as she was walking to church one Sunday morning.  As the story used to go, the lady pronounced the name of the substance in disgust as she furiously struggled to wipe it off by repeatedly wetting her thumb with her tongue and rubbing, and wetting and rubbing and wetting some more...Yyeccchhh!  My mother insisted that the story was true and she could never tell it without having to interrupt the flow of the description to succumb to waves of screeching laughter.
So, you see what having to buy a box of Kleenex can do to an old guy with a memory.  But there's more.  Oh yeah.  I got to thinking about the baby and his problem of taking only one tissue out of the box and being done with it.  So, after I found the picture and camped on the focus of the "Thought", I decided that I would do some research about the history of Kleenex.  Mostly, I wondered when the "pop-up" feature had been invented.  I found out that it was 1929.  Youch!  Nearly 85 years ago.  Hey, that's older than I am!  But you know what?  I also found out that Kimberly-Clark, the manufacturer, never thought of it as a nose juice recipient/wiper.  Nope.  They made it to wipe cold cream off actresses' faces.  Really, that's what the book says.  Slowly but surely the word got around that ordinary people liked the idea of the Kleenex doing their nose work and saving them the trouble of washing and ironing handkerchiefs.  It wasn't until around 1930, six whole years after the introduction of the product that the company started to advertise it as an alternative to handkerchiefs.
But hey, it gets better.  I read somewhere that very early on in history,  the Japanese had found a way to treat and soften a kind of seaweed so that they could take care of their runny nose and then throw the seaweed down on the ground rather than put it in their pocket.  Those who could afford that luxury thought they were cool and they enjoyed showing up the poor folks who were still using their hands and their sleeves.  For the record;  throw a Kleenex on the ground in Japan these days and it's the slammer for you, dude!
See how times change?  Finally, and I know that this is going to kill you:  How many of you actually took time to teach your beloved children how to use a handkerchief properly?  Hmmm!  Hard to be honest with that one, right?  I pity those poor kids.   I'll bet that you even forbade them to wipe their nose on their sleeve.  I'll leave you with the picture that results from those two previous sentences...
I don't dare write it in public...

I think I'll just let myself out the back door, slinkily and quietly...

Come back tomorrow, if you dare...

WHOSE READING THIS NOW?

United States
Germany
Canada
United Kingdom
France
China
India
Australia
India
Jamaica

Don't ask me who they are.  I just know that I am told by my handy dandy stats reporter that there are people in these ten countries who read what you do.  To all of you around the world who read a simple old man's musings about his life, welcome and trust in my respect for you.  I am glad that I don't use foul language, except for the occasional Latin use of a common Anglo Saxon expletive, camouflaged for the sake of propriety and a show of Classical European culture.
Nearly three years ago now, on Thanksgiving eve I began to do this and I just never stopped.  In fact, from this I sprouted a couple more blogs because I did not want to compromise the nature of this one.  So I created one that is basically very Catholic...life style Catholic, not doctrinally Catholic in its totality.  Then I was cornered because every now and then I just love to let the grouch in me have his day, so I took a page out of Malcom Muggeridge and Jean Baptiste Poquelin de Molière and created a blog that is as much a rant as anything else.  You should visit that one...Wow, some good stuff there.  Lots of politics and soon there will be a post there about insurance companies...Oh yeah...life insurance, if you please.  They made the mistake of messing with me while I am still alive.  They should have waited a while.  Then, a couple of years ago, the missionary in me decided that there is a way to evangelize and to exhort and to pray and meditate and reflect for personal growth and the edification of members of the Faith Community, so I have that one too and some of you read that one as well.  Truth to tell, it is a lot more mellow than the Crusty Kurmujjin, of course.
So now I am 16 days away from the third anniversary of my blogging life and on the anniversary, I will be partly in the air, partly in Istanbul and partly in Moab, the land of Ruth.  It's always fun to fly in the opposite direction of the International Dateline.  You never know where you are and are always mystified about what the time of day is.  So anyway, if you get word from me there, just realize that I am not looking for the Lost Ark... or whatever that place is renowned for!
So, this old man never ceases to be amazed at the wonders of the 21st century.  If you read the Crusty Kurmujjin, you will see that the amazement sometimes turns to utter disgust...without nary a nasty word, guaranteed.  That is one development of the 21st century that I am resisting.  I only cuss when certain people are around...and come to think of it, both of them are dead already...Sheesh! I'm getting old.
C ya's later, alligaters...

IS IT A LIE OR A PURE DISCONNECT FROM REALITY

Would bugs be funny without Elmer?

Ask yourself if President Obama would look sane without the Republicans hounding him all the time?  Maybe not.  I have written some rather critical things about the man, here.
This time it is perhaps more humorous than it is anything else, but you have to admit that the youngster has put his foot in his mouth for sure, this time.  We all know what he wanted to say when he said that "If you like your insurance, you get to keep it."  He said that, and other variations on the same theme more than once.  Now, there is a wave of accusation and disparagement against him for lying.  He's not lying.  He's just disconnected.  If he's not disconnected, he's propably running on "LoBat" like he does a lot of the time.  He's like Elmer Fudd.  He's got a lot of bluster, but he ain't never killed nobody!  He said that because he's just plumb out of touch with reality.  How do I know that?  Watch closely as you yourself answer these questions to yourself.
1. How do you know whether or not you like your health insurance?
2. How do you know whether or not you like your life insurance?
3. How do you know whether or not you like your car insurance?
If you haven't died lately,you're more than likely fairly happy with your life insurance.
Insurance is something that we like when we don't have to use it.
Moving right along to health insurance.  How many of you really know the difference between an insurance policy that you like and one that you dislike?  The cost of the premium, right?  The level of the deductible, right?  How many of you know whether or not you really like your homeowner's insurance?  Why?

When the president made those statements, he should have known that he was talking to a brick wall.  No,not the Republican brick wall,the brick wall of ignorance about the complex reality that is insurance.  The only time that we like or dislike our insurance is when we get the good news or the bad news.  In between, we don't even think about it.  We throw the $200.00 premium at it every month with nary a thought about whether we like it or not.  Actually, we can't think about why we like it or not because we don't use it or we don't understand it.

The president also made the mistake of not trying to explain that the new law was going to make all health care insurance policies meet certain minimum standards.  So that one that you had, fell far short of these standards before the law.  Now that the standards have been built in, you have to pay more and so you hate the president because you now hate your insurance policy and you think that the president lied on purpose.  He didn't lie out of malice.  He erred out of the disconnect between his way of living and ours.  He thought that we would undertand that when insurance companies had to change their policies to accommodate the law of "no maximum caps on benefits; no pre-existing conditions; no deselection because of no coverage of certain illnesses and a host more, they would increase their prices."

In the process, we had lost our below standard insurance that we had and liked, so we had to go another route.  Also, in the process, many insurance policies were changed and are no longer the same as we had and liked before because they had to be changed to meet the standards of the new law.  After the change, of course the price was increased because the level of insurance company risk went up substantially.  Mr. Obama knew that, I am sure.  It should have been explained and it should be explained now.  It's what we get when those who live in palaces and don't have daily cash flow problems try talking to us.  When it comes to nitty-gritty reality like Insurance, they are ignorant of what it takes to make us understand.  They make it easy for us to call them liars.  They are liars.  But in this case, I know enough about insurance to want to give the president a slight slice of mercy, all the while saying with shame that he did, and is doing, a horrible job in this area.

At one point or another along the way, President Obama said these things, but neither he nor any of his people elucidated them to make them understandable to the greater population.

NO PICTURE - JUST YOUR IMAGINATION - THAT WILL BE $1.00 PLEASE

Those of you who have been reading in this corner know that there is a lot of nostalgia laying around.  So, I usually have a picture of some nature to help you bring your mind back as far as I go.  No mean trick, actually.  Tonight, though, I am going to talk about something that happened to me today.  As you know, I've done that a time or two.  Here is what happened.

I have been looking for a cheap life insurance policy to replace the one I have had for ten years.  It is due to expire in August and the premium would explode in the manner of Hiroshima.  An agent got me a nice, I thought, guaranteed issue $20,000 policy.  All I had to do was to fill out the forms and start paying the premium.  I had a question to ask stemming from the mailed documents that I had received.  During the telephone call, on which I happened to be talking to a sweet and gentle, softly lilting voice of a respectful and warm senior sounding lady, I found out the following.

For every single "mode of payment" to this insurance company, there is a fee.  The fee is based on the degree of convenience or inconvenience that the exchange of money from the buyer to the seller entails.  Of course, it is the seller who determines the degree of inconvenience.  So, and this is but an example, not the real numbers.  This is just an illustration of the concept.

    MODE OF PAYMENT                                    FEE
Pay by cash out of hand:                   Principal + 1%
Pay by check, USPS                          Principal + 2%
Pay by telephone call                         Principal + 3%
Pay by direct bank to bank draft         Principal + 4%
Pay by online banking                        Principal + 6.5%

If you think that this is a joke, think again.  It happened to me today as I was talking to the above mentioned sweet little old lady from the insurance company.  I warned her in these words, "Lady, I'm now going to say something that is going to offend you."  I proceeded to tell her in firm, but unmistakably acerbic terms that it is viciously immoral to charge someone a fee for putting money in your hand for a previously agreed upon amount.  She was silent for a good minute and a half.  I just waited, silently, of course.  She then, meekly, proffered, "Well, every company does it."  I said, "I have a computer full of bills that I pay without any 'modal fee.'  So lady, this conversation has just ended.  Good-bye."  Click.

So, boys and girls, be very astute when conducting business with sweet little ol' ladies.  They talk like angels and slink like asps.

Now see, you didn't need a picture for that, now did you?