Wipe it Away

You know what I miss? 

Disinfectant wipes. 

Truth be told: I've always felt a guilty pleasure about using them. It's sort of ridiculous, right? Premoistened single-use toweletts in a big plastic tub – or plastic wrapping – how wasteful!! How bad for the environment! How toxic! And yet... yet...(they are so convenient!)...I sort of love them. 

The last several months – while they have been challenging to get and expensive to buy, even when one does find them – I have been consciously repeating the refrains about the environmental evilness and unneccesary-ness of single use disinfecting wipes ad nauseam. Meanwhile, the unconscious side of my brain works on why I love them so much. 

Early on in the pandemic, Fritz decided we could make our own disposable disinfectant wipes. We saved our empty containers. Fritz found a place on online to buy towelettes that wouldn't disintegrate when pre-moistened. We mixed up our our own disinfecting solution. Noah named it "Tub of Pool" because after it's pungent aroma. And when it stopped smelling like Pool one week later, we learned all about the shelf life of chlorine. 

These attempts at make-our-own disinfectant wipes have just reinforced the brilliance of the ones I used to buy, pre-made, in the store. The pre-made towelettes have just the right amount of durability. They are the perfect size. They wipe away the hourly-accumulating mysterious brown smudges in the Wyse Household with efficiency and thoroughness. And I know – I know – I'm just foisting extra work and damage on Mother Earth when I say this...but...it's one less piece of laundry for me to do.

sigh.

For six months I've told myself to get over it, find some new methods, grow a spine. But it's just not happening. If only I could wipe away my addiction as easily as the brown smudges in my house.