Consumer Reports Part Eight

Consumer Reports was a ten part series of humorous articles appearing in the 1972-73 WHS Lantern. Alas, the first, fourth and tenth and final report have gone missing.

For posterity and your enjoyment I post the surviving articles.

Part eight in a growing report of consumer hazards. Hello America, I'm Mike Gilroy and today I'd like to review an inconspicuous hazard in an American’s life, the handkerchief.

Fact: 95% of all noses have felt a handkerchief.

The handkerchief business in America is a clean one indeed. If not for a handkerchief how could Fred Astaire have ever started all those dances with Ginger Rogers?

Fact: 78% of all their dances were started with a drop of her hankie.

Yet while handkerchiefs played a snotty role in the movies it had a devious role in actual American life. Under the alias of bandanna it helped countless numbers of banditos to rob stagecoaches and banks.

It has in fact several aliases. Where would the hippie movement be today without the “head band”.

Fact: 97% of all hippies use their handkerchiefs on their heads and not their noses.

Handkerchiefs are also responsible for upsetting ecology. Due to an increase in silk hankies the silk worm is fast approaching the endangered species list. Sanitation is also disturbed by the use of handkerchiefs. Who knows what touched that handkerchief before your child put it to his nose, or better still, who knows what touched your child’s nose before the handkerchief? But all of these are the least of the hazards presented by handkerchiefs. The American housewife has all too often found tell-tale signs of hanky-panky on her husband’s kerchiefs as she sorts his laundry.

Fact: 67% of all American husbands who use nanny and her puffs keep their marriage and their fun.

If America did decide to stop using handkerchiefs what would be come of them? This Christmas why don’t you surprise your wife with a patchwork linen tablecloth and a quilted silk gown?