Paperless World? Over Kleenex's® Empty Carton Carcass!

Hey, you know that single ancient washcloth you use as a bathroom hand towel? Remember when it got super soiled from drying your just-washed hands on it over and over? And then your dog started chewing on it, but you didn't have a spare, so you just hung it right back up? And then your washing machine went on the fritz so you couldn't wash it? You know, the one that's still hanging in your bathroom right now, looking like a thrice-used square of toilet paper? Man, that is such a drag!

But finally, someone understands! The brilliant heads over at Kleenex® came out with a disposable hand towel for just this sort of situation (see the TV spot below). Yep, while the SunChips® folks were unveiling their new 100% compostable chip bag (and an altogether smarter marketing campaign), the geniuses over at Kleenex® basically said, "Screw that! We'll just throw some money at one of those environmental cause thingies!" This is indeed the same company that brought us many wonderful paper products, but I draw the disposability line at tissues (which we need; handkerchiefs are only cute in Victorian romances). Too bad they didn't opt to introduce this product on Earth Day. Because nothing says conservation like big-ass paper towels for your overmoist hands.

But setting aside the fact that these things are wasteful as shit (no pun intended), what exactly is supposed to be so horrible about cloth towels, anyway? I honestly never thought about this prior to viewing this ad, but hell, I love towels! They're soft, they're fluffy, they come in colors! Why would I want to eliminate such a comforting bathroom item in exchange for yet another thing that dispenses from a carton? This whole idea is extra scary because I feel like Kleenex® might be developing a paper bath towel as I type this. Oh, to be a fly on the wall in one of their staff meetings... "Hey, Johnson, if we play our cards right, we might be able to do away with terry cloth entirely! NO MORE FUCKING TERRY CLOTH!" 

And that commercial! What a blatant insult to any consumer of average intelligence. For the love of Sterling Cooper, are there really any families who wait that long until switching out their hand towels? And what is coming out of these people's faucet? Swamp water?

But let's never mind the lazy ad campaign for a second. Never mind the needless waste and the arguably unattractive appearance of the towels themselves. Let's focus instead on the sheer idiocy of this product. Because in the grand scheme of bathroom experiences, the last thing I want to try to replicate in my home is the rest stop on Route 59. Up next: wall-mounted soap dispensers!