Tissue Trouble

It's cold and flu season, which means that it's time for LOTS of tissues.

Now, I grew up calling them Kleenex, just like everyone else- no matter what brand we were using.  The interesting point about that is that there is a distinct difference between the brands- particularly the leading brands- and Puffs are SIGNIFICANTLY better than Kleenex.

And this is why:

The Kleenex box is designed with that little monkey trap of plastic film at the top, designed to hold one tissue up for easy retrieval.

HOWEVER:  this only works for a portion of the box.

With a brand new box of Kleenex, the upward pressure is so great on the rest of the tissues that it rips the tissues at the folded edge when you try to pull it out.  Then you're left with a dangling remnant draped over the edge to the box, that no one can use, and a 1/2 ejected next tissue.  When you to for a second, you end up grabbing two- because the tissue was not in the properly aligned position to begin with and because of that overly full box.

This tearing/over retrieval alternation pattern occurs for about the top 1/3 of the box.

The next zone is the "works as designed" zone.  This is where the tissues come out like they should and stand up correctly- just like the engineers planned it.  However, this zone is completely dependent on the depth of your box:  as the box gets deeper, the size of this zone shrinks.

Why?

Because what happens is that some point, a tissue will not advance correctly.  Instead, it will lethargically land back into the box.  You will have to insert your hand past that plastic film to retrieve it and attempt to stand it up correctly.

However, you have just stretch out the most critical part of the Kleenex box.

AND EVERY TISSUE IN THE BOX FROM HERE ON WILL DROP LETHARGICALLY TO THE BOTTOM.

So, while your hand is full of snot, you're trying to reach past the stretched plastic lips for a tissue with one hand, only to be caught in the next zone:

THE MONKEY TRAP.

It is so named because you can reach successfully with one hand to touch your prize, but you cannot remove your prize with a single hand.  You end up holding your nose with one hand while you dangle a worthless box at the other wrist.

This is the primary reason why Kleenex suck.

In addition, you can't get the mandatory three blows out of a Kleenex; the first one completely destroys the paper and you DEFINITELY don't want to keep it in your pocket because the snot is oozing out of the crumpled corners.

Now, a Puffs tissue is something else.

1. You can ALWAYS reach the tissue in a Puffs box.
2. You can get multiple snot collections in a single Puffs tissue.
3.  (And best of all) the Puffs tissue that you left in your pocket while you did the laundry actually comes out looking like a tissue- heck, I've reused them at this point.  The Kleenex, on the other hand disintegrates like toilet paper in the wash, leaving you with lots of streamers to pull off your clothes.

And at this point, I'd like to request Puffs brand to send me free samples so that I can continue to sing their praises

(because you're more expensive than Kleenex, so we don't have any in the house).