Many years ago, long before I was writing for the paper here, I used to write a series of semi-comedic rants. For some of them, I created a guy named “Chet” who was usually the innocent guy (usually a service employee, bartender, clerk, etc.) who had to suffer through the brunt of my character’s rants. For those of you interested in how writing works, the pattern was usually like this…

My character would be in a store, restaurant, bar or some service business. Chet would walk up and ask a question… like, would you prefer bacon or sausage on your burrito? Then my character would take the opportunity to rant about something going on in the world. It would be one long rant with no paragraph breaks, so you had to read it all like a long sermon. And at the end, Chet would blink and say something like… “So… the sausage, then?”

Anyway, I wrote one where Chet gets his revenge. I thought you might like it. Don’t take anything in it too personally. Chet can be a pill sometimes.

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The Baby Wipe Story (Chet’s Revenge)

One day several years ago I was in the small, local grocery store looking at baby wipe options. You might be surprised to learn that even in a small, local grocery store, there can be quite a few styles of baby wipes. Maybe too many choices.

Until you have lived completely off-grid with no running water for a dozen or more years, you may not even understand the true value of the humble baby wipe. During our time living on an off-grid homestead, we learned to live without most modern amenities. For the most part, we left modernity behind.

But, I have to say that of all the modern consumer products I would hate to lose access to if the AI zombies destroy the world, there are only about three consumer products I would actually miss. Baby wipes are at the tippy-top of that very short list. And we don’t have babies anymore. Haven’t in quite a while. We use baby wipes for just about everything.

Now, someone will read this and decide they need to inform me that I can make my own baby wipes, perhaps by managing a wood lot and pulping my own paper, etc., and of course, you’ll have the lowest kind of dolt who will tell me “just use a hand towel and water and wash the towel between uses, duh” because that would never occur to me… but the intelligent ones of you will say “Wow, that’s interesting. Of all the amenities and handy products in the whole modern world, the one he finds the most useful and will miss the most is baby wipes.”

Isn’t that interesting? Anyway, I was in the store looking at the baby wipes. Too many choices. That’s when Chet walked up. He was a stocking clerk at the grocery.

“We’re out of the scented aloe,” Chet said.

“I can see that,” I replied. “I’m just sitting here trying to decide between the unscented aloe, the scented heavy-duty one-and-done, or these new ones… the unscented sensitive skin. I like the aloe because it soothes irritation, but I don’t like the fragrances. But I also like the heavy-duty, since you use fewer of them per use.”

Chet looked at me for a moment, almost wistfully. His eyes drifted to the middle-distance as he became lost in thought. Then he spoke.

“I wish they had something like baby wipes to soothe the irritation in every other area of life… like the existential irritation of having to deal with people today.”

Chet was deeply troubled. “It gets worse every day,” He said. “And this time of year, Spring going towards Summer, is the worst of the worst examples of our global NPC invasion. The slap-slide-slap-slide of the lowest of them trying to keep their stupid flip-flops on their stupid feet, as if no disaster could ever befall them where they might need to move quickly over rough ground, or maybe to help someone who needs assistance. As if they’d forgotten what it took for all of their ancestors to survive. They can’t imagine that someday they may need to run into a burning building or maybe have to travel over broken glass to save a child, because, well, their whole lives they’ve lived in comfort and affluence. Caring for others, well, that is always someone else’s job. My grandfather and his father would never have appeared in public looking like they were waiting in line for the shower at the KOA campground. Anyways, look at them. Just watch them. They touch every item in the store with their greasy hands, even though they aren’t going to buy the stuff. Like flippant little a-hole monkeys. It’s all made worse because they constantly have to grope with those same hands into their privates to pull their too-tight clothing that seems to want to hide from the embarrassment by climbing up into their unmentionables. In short, their entire being and existence oozes a complete disregard for the existence of anyone else in the world… as they stand in the aisles, carts blocking ingress and egress, because who the hell cares if other people might want to shop? And they all think they are special. Little queens and kings. All dressed the same, saying the same things, thinking the same. Oh, but they each think they are so unique! Invariably some trifling flippancy with their hair indicates their independence of mind and ‘weirdness’ among the masses who look and act exactly like them. Blue streak, all purple, shaved on one side, man bun, piercings, whatever. They park their vehicles like communist party officials in old Soviet Russia with no regard for anyone else, they throw their stupid gum on the ground because the sugar is gone from it, and Lord knows we need to see every ill-advised tattoo they’ve ever decided to get after watching some reality show featuring moral degenerates trying to stay relevant by behaving poorly. I don’t know how much longer things can go on like this, friend. Every day is worse than the one before. Today, this new outrage. A monster truck… guy almost needed a ladder to get out of it… came screaming through the parking lot belching smoke. Almost hit an old lady and then slid to a stop with two wheels over the line into the handicapped parking spot. Oregon plates, of all places. ‘Millions Against Monsanto’ stickers on the back, and some Peace and Love stickers too. One sticker was of a paper clip, and another told me that climate change is real. Hipster dude gets out with his little Frazier dog. Frazier dog is wearing a vest with pockets. No leash. No nothing. Guy walks into the store with Frazier dog trailing behind. He has empathy for the dog, but all the people can get bent. People suck, don’t you know? Dogs are little four-legged gods. People are lower than mud… unless he can virtue signal by pretending to care for some subsection of them. A bumper sticker will do for that. Guy buys some beard balm and a tiny spatula. Puts the spatula in the dog’s vest pocket so the dog can feel cared for and loved and needed, then walks back to his truck. Slams it into gear, peels out, almost hits a few children, and screeches back onto the main road belching smoke all the way. That’s what we’re dealing with today, friend, and I don’t think they have a baby wipe for that kind of irritation.” Chet sighed, and there was silence for a few minutes as we both pondered the issues. “So you’re thinking the unscented aloe?”

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Michael Bunker is a local columnist for BrownwoodNews.com whose columns appear on Wednesdays and Sundays on the website.