What’ll We Do Now!?!?

I bought this package of toilet paper. It’s raison d’etre is that the rolls don’t have a cardboard tube core. We’re saving trees. It seems like a good thing, doesn’t it?

I bought the package to see if I liked the way it worked. Actually, it’s not as smoothly rolling, because the center isn’t perfectly round; so it sort of bumps around. And, when you get to almost the end, the roll (much depleted), just sort of droops on the t.p. holder. Nothing is really a deal-breaker, even though the family I had in the house at the time didn’t care for it. But I felt a little chill of dismay when I saw it, and imagined that green, earth-friendly decision might spread throughout the entire toilet paper manufacturing community. NO MORE CARDBOARD TUBES!!!

Here are the cardboard tubes I’ve been collecting for weeks, for Fun with Friends at church.

Which is what a friend of mine also thought. She’s been a teacher of school-agers, a Children’s Minister, and a teacher of preschoolers. One of the army of people who use toilet paper tubes for all sort of things. Pinterest is FULL of ideas for crafts and art and decor and stuff that would make teachers and parents drool. What are we going to do if cardboard tubes disappear? Should we start hoarding them now? Just in case?

Some things that teachers, especially those of little kids, used to save and use for projects and activities are disappearing. Or falling out of favor. Ivory Soap Flakes used to be a standard. They were hard to find even in the 70’s. I did find Zote soap flakes, a Wal-mart product, and the website information says that they are available in stores. I’ll have to look. Teachers used to squirt shaving cream onto tabletops for children to use as finger paint. They smeared it all over, it smelled good, and the tables got clean. Then someone realized some of the ingredients in the shaving cream might be harmful to kids. (Which is why we need those nice pure soap flakes)

Some of the activities that we used to do with kids are really discouraged these days, like one I used to really enjoy doing with little kids. Fruit and vegetable prints. You cut an apple, an orange, a bell pepper in half, and you used those halves as stamps. Kids pressed them into paint and then onto pieces of paper. The prints looked great. You can even get a cool looking flower if you cut okra crossways. But, finally, someone with a great sensibility about things explained to the rest of us: “Look what you are doing. You are taking good food and rendering it inedible. How do you think a hungry child would feel if they walked into your room and saw you destroying food? What would a mother feel if she saw nourishing food go to waste when her child goes to bed hungry every night? Realize what you are teaching the children. They are learning that good food can be wasted, instead of used to feed people.” And lots of us listened.

But, you know what makes cool prints? Toilet paper rolls! You can make circles. Or, you can press the tube ends into squares and triangles and hearts. If you really work at it, you could probably make stars and even alphabet letters.

There is a right time for everything

Ecclesiastes 3:1 Living Bible

I rather like this no-nonsense translation. Things come and things go. Clothing styles and cuisines and vehicles. Ways we teach. Ways we communicate. (Just for the record, I apparently do not have the thumbs for efficient communicating these days.) Much of what we feel is essential for out lives now will change and magnify or disappear and maybe reappear over the decades and millennia. We just need to find the right things for the right times. And of course, remember that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. (Hebrews 13:8, Living Bible).