Tuesday, September 11, 2007


My husband can build anything. Seriously. He's built several houses, including the one we live in right now, and he's so good at putting things together. He also has a great imagination, and he comes up with some of the silliest ideas.

One of those ideas recently came to fruition when he designed The Tissue Recycle Center for my girlfriend's birthday. My friend is one of those people who uses a tissue to swipe at her nose, and then rather than throwing that tissue away she tucks it into a pocket or sleeve for another use. Sometimes she places those little crumpled tissues on tables or countertops in her house, and that's where my husband came up with his idea.

He searched through our garage to come up with the materials for this invention of his, and then he spent a couple of days refining and redesigning to make it just perfect. He wrote a whole story to go with it, but since it's so long and some of it would only make sense to my friend, I'm just including an excerpt here.
Premium second-hand tissues – it’s snot just for company any more.

Finally, a place the whole family can recycle together.
This sleek, slender family size brings an additional bit of class to any room.
A look that will make your neighbors and friends envious,
so you might want to hide this product when they come over.

This product is ergonomically designed and user friendly.
Insert freshly-used tissues into the top and retrieve dried, crusty tissues from the bottom.
How simple is that?

This model has an easy-opening retrieval lid,
for those times when you need a quick wipe.

The flexible wire handle turns this unit into a purse,
perfect for the woman and family on the go.

Quality is job #1, so I’ve used commercial grade duct tape for strength where needed.
You might think this feature would cost extra, and you’d be wrong.
It actually comes standard with this model.

Since the lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina,
I like to build everything up high.
The legs make it a little less stable, but the payoff equals dry, recycled valuables.
The legs also offer lift and total air circulation of your only-used-once tissue product.
Leg extenders (samples included) come in two different sizes,
for those times when you want that long, sleek look.
Great for the beach.

My test results have varied due to humidity and volume of waste product,
but the average turnover time (moist to hard) is two and a half hours.
So that means what you use in the morning can be reused by lunchtime.

The Tissue Recycle Center was presented to my girlfriend at her party, along with the story, and she got a huge kick out of it. Her plan was to take it to work and display it on a side table so others could enjoy it, although I'm not sure everyone shares our sense of humor.
As for that tissue reuse, I'm still not quite sure how my husband can label that as "gross," since he uses a handkerchief. Isn't that the same thing?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is hilarious!!!! Love it.

Carol Dean Sharpe said...

Come long sleeve season, where do you think my tissues will be? :D LOL