There’s an old song (I’ve heard it a couple of times recently on Lawrence Welk reruns) by the above title, probably from the first part of the twentieth century. It’s remarking on some of the “new” developments and inventions of the time – such things as short skirts, telephones and electric streetlights. A century later, I find myself echoing the sentiment regarding so many of the changes that we have had to learn to tolerate since that disturbing period known as The Pandemic.

That event brought a lot of panic buying that resulted in shortages of many things that had always been readily available; things like toilet paper, baby formula and other products that our ancestors had gotten along just fine without and that we suddenly considered to be basic necessities. Manufacturers and retailers tried to fill the gaps by cutting costs and turning out smaller items from the available amount of materials. This resulted in such things as thinner sheets of facial tissue and smaller rolls of toilet paper, and now we have so-called “mega” rolls claiming to equal as much as four times as much of the product we bought before. Who do they think they are fooling?

We, the credulous public have noticed the higher cost of less, and like innocent fools, many of us expected things to go back like they were before the pandemic within a year or so. I am willing to concede that the original shortages were largely the public’s fault, brought on by selfish hoarding and an unattractive “me first” attitude, but it has continued at least partly because manufacturers and retailers discovered that we would rather continue to pay more for less than to go without our accustomed luxuries.

I admit that I did think that “They’ve gone about as far as they can go,” after all this time (has it really been over seven years?) I understand that not all that goes up must come down (prices in particular) and higher wages result in higher prices because more people can afford to pay more, but I’d sure like to see things like toilet paper and facial tissue return to their original sizes and quality, regardless of price. My most recent surprise was that those rolls of bathroom tissue have again became a little narrower and a little shorter – just when I thought they’d actually gone as far as they could go! One of the alarming things about all this is that while our ancestors made do with the cheap paper in old mail-order catalogs, we can’t follow their example in these modern times. Most of those mail-order products are now offered on-line and the printed catalogs we see are from luxury retailers who print on heavy, slick paper that is no use for that other purpose.

I suppose we could go back to about fifty years ago and eliminate the extravagance of facial tissue. Once upon a time, everyone carries handkerchiefs – not just to decorate the unused breast pockets of men’s suit jackets, but to actually blow their noses on or dry unexpected tears while watching sad movies. My mother kept a box of tissues on her dressing table to remove make-up, but tears and runny noses were dealt with by handkerchiefs. There were specific types of handkerchiefs for specific people and occasions. Men who dressed in suits and ties carried two white linen handkerchiefs, one folded to crisp decorative points in the breast pocket of his suit or sports jacket, the other crumpled and ready for sneezes and coughs in a pants pocket. Farmers and other laborers generally carried large red or blue squares printed with swirled black and white paisley designs.

Most women and girls preferred decorative dainty squares sporting flowers, butterflies or birds and often finished with handmade tatting, lace or crocheted edging. Female schoolteachers almost universally had large collections of pretty handkerchiefs representing the most common Christmas gifts from their students. Young girls preferred hankies featuring cute baby animals, elves and fairies, or cartoon characters. As for young boys, my early memories indicate that they seemed to rely on their shirtsleeves and the backs of their hands.