Pointless !

I’ve wondered about the whole purpose of drawer liners, scented or otherwise, on and off for a very long time now. You might say ‘this one has very little to think about’ and maybe you’d be right! Actually scrap that, you’d be very wrong, my brain is fried with the enormous amount of stuff in there piling up for processing. The only reason it’s at the forefront of my mind at the moment is because I came across a box of them recently in the bowels of our ‘cupboard that holds everything’ You could find anything in there, but I’d hidden them there some years back for a cooling off period with the sole purpose of retrieving them and subsequently binning them. But of course ‘out of sight, out of mind’. Anyway I was given this box of drawer liners as a gift, either birthday or Christmas, it’s irrelevant which. My point is WHY! Why would anyone in their right mind think I could get any kind of joy or value from a gift like this? Do I look like some-one who would go ga-ga over rose scented drawer liners? Don’t answer that, I can assure you now, I do not. To be fair, you could imagine giving something like this to your great aunt Ethel, residing in Shady Pines and even she’d have to be in the advancing stages of dementia to forge any kind of bond with drawer liners! I was almost certainly in my thirties when these offending articles made their way into my life. Again, why? The only upside (I’m trying to be the glass half full person) to receiving them was I didn’t have to open them in the givers company. Can you imagine the Oscar winning performance I’d have to put on there?? See, every cloud…

Thinking about drawer liners has prompted me to contemplate all the pointless perfumery type products out there. Of course this is only my opinion, but I absolutely hate receiving a gift box of miniature body lotions and potions. I think it shows that absolutely NO bloody effort whatsoever has gone into the gift. It also means I have to hang on to them for a respectable amount of time before remembering to trash them and I don’t have time for that. Think about it, it’s so easy to pop into The Body Shop, for example, and pull ten different gift boxes off the shelves. Most are even gift wrapped for the lazy sods who buy them! I receive quite a lot of these and I’ll be honest with you, I sometimes do recycle them back into circulation. If the giver was happy to pack off the trio of plastic bottles wrapped in ribbon as a fitting present, then I have no problem returning a similar item. It’s tricky remembering exactly who gave what so as I don’t end up returning the same gift, can you imagine! Seriously I’d rather they just made a small donation to saving orphan donkey’s or some such worthy cause, that at least would have the feel good factor about it. If I want coconut body lotion with a hint of nettle, I’ll buy it myself and while I’d love to be the woman who smoothes on hand-cream  every night, I’m not, I’m usually too knackered to think about my cuticles. I can’t even bring myself to talk about talcum powder, I feel nauseous just thinking about it, you get the picture…

I had to do a bathroom cull recently as we had several miniature versions of bath salts and lotions perched on the window ledge and with the window open the majority of time, a random gust of wind would cause the wooden blind to shot-put the little blighters all over the place. Stupidly, I just kept putting them back before coming to my senses and binning the lot! I mustn’t have been feeling myself to have allowed them in there in the first place, that’s my excuse anyway. To my shame, there was a hint of snobbery attached to hanging on to these as they had quality labels. I do so love Chanel…

Now I  wont name and shame but I know someone (he knows who he is) who has a habit of collecting (pilfering) the freebie miniature sets whenever we have an overnighter in a hotel.  At one point we had shower caps from Sydney, mini soap tablets from Cape Town, and shower gel from the dark ages. Firstly, who uses a shower cap these days? And Secondly, I’d safely say we could stretch to buying one, should I suddenly undergo a personality transplant. Oh, and the mini sewing kits! Don’t get me started! Alright, I suppose it would be handy in a loose button emergency, particularly as you were stupid enough to only pack the one shirt in your overnight case. I put these items in the same camp as the crap that comes in Christmas crackers. Please find me the idiot who likes picking up the detrius from countless Christmas crackers for days after the festive event. Mini hair grips, plastic love heart shaped rings, tiny staplers and hole-punchers to name but a few. Fine, if you are one of The Borrowers but for the love of Mike, at least put a Tiffany ring or the winning lottery ticket in there, it would reduce my pain somewhat! Mind you, I think the contents of the crackers reflects where they are purchased, I must remember to put my order in to Harrods in plenty of time for this year…

Hands up all of you who add ‘Rosewater’ to your shopping list? Pray tell,  where in life this has a purpose? None, that’s where. Please, please leave the roses to look beautiful in their natural state instead of extracting the scent and sticking it in a bottle with water before adding a price tag. Actually, I’ve just had a thought, maybe it’s to spritz  the already scented drawer liners for livening up your underwear drawer… These products are first cousins of the Knick Knacks, you know those useless bits of ornaments that adorne surfaces, gathering dust in peoples homes up and down the country.

I thought we were trying to save the planet and reduce global warming and such like? Shouldn’t we have some kind of referundum opportunity to rid the planet of these worthless, ineffectual articles? – Just Sayin’