A Silver Lining?

Weeks ago I was in need of Q-tips. Or, I guess more specifcally, I was in need of ear cleaning which would be facilitated, to the best of my knowledge, most appropriately by Q-tips. I therefore went to my local Walgreens, not really needing a full market-run, and only needing Q-tips, I think shaving cream, and possibly something benign like Band-Aids. Or something.

At any rate, no where in the store could I find Q-tips. Not near the medial supplies, not near the make-up… and I have to stop my list there, how many more places would they really be? Nevertheless, I walked the whole store twice, not asking anyone about their location as I was sure that I could find a rather slow and non-moving target like Q-tips on my own.

I couldn’t.

Defeated, I went to the well-known location of the shaving cream, next to which, strangely, were the Q-tips. Well, not exactly. These were “cotton swabs”, and they were 1,000 for a dollar. 1,000 for $1! So I got them, dreaming happily of clean ears.

But it was not to be. Without going into too much detail, there is a lot to be said of the brilliance of Q-tip brand Q-tips over your lesser 1000:$1 product. You’re thinking, “How hard could it be to re-create the simplicity of a Q-tip?” Well, I’m here to tell you, it’s apparently very hard, as these things were wholly inadequate and entirely disappointing. Luckily Unfortunately, I now had 999 left to suffer through.

Until the fire.
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Cotton being it’s absorbent self, and despite the fact that these cotton swabs were in the bottom of a cabinet two rooms away, they got completely ruined by smoke. They reeked of burning belongings and had a fine film of soot that came off in my hands when I tried to use one. And, as I threw roughly 977 cotton swabs in the trash this morning, I thought to myself what a wonderful thing fire sometimes is.