Everybody is into conservation these days — even Uncle Nunzi. Global warming has officially become a threat when Uncle Nunzi says something like, "Al Gore was right." To better understand the significance of this remark, you have to know that, in his mind, Gore and his favorite nephew have never been right about anything.
Uncle says he was recycling years before it became mandatory. He points out he has been using the same empty prune-juice bottle for years to store his homemade wine in the refrigerator. He grows some of his own fruits and vegetables without benefit of pesticides and, when he reached 80, gave up his car for the virtue of long walks. Don’t mention how he pollutes the air with his stogies. Everyone makes compromises.
Can you keep a secret? Uncle regularly watches "The View." He wasn’t very happy when Rosie replaced Meredith Vieira, but I can’t blame him. It has nothing to do with Rosie’s sometimes-outrageous political views, who would you rather look at? Uncle claims his cataracts never got in the way when Meredith was on. But when the subject of conservation came up on the show recently, Uncle was all ears.
Barbara Walters was discussing Sheryl Crow’s idea that we should all wear detachable dinner sleeves in order to save paper napkins. Presumably you would wipe your mouth on the sleeve, detach it and throw it in the washer. I do not consider myself an environmental expert. I won’t try to figure out whether the manufacturing of detachable sleeves, which no doubt would be done in third-world countries by 12-year-old kids, is an idea whose time has come. Rosie remarked the sleeves are already here and Uncle reluctantly agreed with her. "When we were kids," he said, "we would wipe our noses with our sleeves." According to Uncle, they even had a name for them. "We called them patent-leather sleeves." I think I’d rather use a paper napkin.
Crow has another idea that generated more conversation on "The View." She wants to limit the use of toilet paper to one square per visit. At that point, Rosie asked a pertinent question about whether the singer had seen the size of Rosie’s butt lately? A question that left Uncle and I picturing the difficulty one little square of toilet paper would have cleaning up territory the size of the Great Northwest.
I had to come to the defense of Sheryl Crow if only because, well, she’s Sheryl Crow. "Sheryl did allow for the use of two to three sheets on difficult toilet trips," I said. Uncle reminded me that by her own admission, Rosie’s butt would defy any otherwise reasonable limitations. On that, we both heartily agreed.
Uncle wanted to know who would enforce the toilet-paper restrictions. I figure maybe this is what the Bush administration means by an "open door" policy. Uncle is afraid that, having failed to find WMDs in Iraq, the CIA might feel it can redeem its reputation by ferreting out profligate toilet-paper usage.
What legal mechanism could the government use to catch toilet-paper violations? There is always the Patriot Act. If the government can find out what books you take out of the public library, they can probably make a case for bathroom police. In Uncle’s opinion, the government could realistically only limit toilet-paper usage in public restrooms. I’m not against bathroom police in a democracy, but there’s a lot more important stuff to watch out for in the public restrooms I have visited. Would the bathroom police overlook people having sex and smoking dope and focus solely on the one-square-per-person toilet-paper law?
Uncle thinks before we limit United States’ citizens to one square, we ought to enforce the law against illegal aliens. Enough of this coddling of illegals who are using up our toilet paper.
I could see Attorney General Alberto Gonzales drawing up the toilet-paper guidelines. It might be something he is really good at, which would help his confidence — and ours.
In the end (no pun intended) I don’t think Sheryl Crow’s idea would work. If you’ve ever been on a cruise ship and seen all those big butts in spandex pants cozying up to the buffet table, you’d know limiting toilet-paper usage to one square could be the theme for the next "Mission: Impossible."
