Choice Goods Wednesday!

It's been two weeks since I last posted a choice good. But I've got a good one for you. I try to vary them, but as I spend a lot of time in the kitchen, I tend to find things that make my time the most productive and efficient in there. Now, while today's good is found on your kitchen counter or wall, its uses far exceed that room of the house. You'll find a need in every room, your car, camping, automotive work, everywhere. What is it?

Paper Towels!! But not just any paper towels. Viva paper towels are our towel of choice. In our house, the only thing worse than wimpy paper towels is wimpy toilet paper. Because nothing ruins your day like a finger going through the paper when you're cleaning up your business. Am I right? Yeah, I thought so. But that's for a different post on a different Wednesday.

Do you know what brand of paper towel any of your friends use? If you have spent enough time in our company, at some point or another you would know our brand of choice. When we find something of great quality, we are rather vocal about it. We've converted friends, family and even strangers in the store to Viva paper towels.

What is it that puts Viva up on that pedestal? Quality. Unadulterated quality. These babies can go through the wash, the dryer and come out the other end ready for work. They are strong and soft. They are absorbant as all get out. A small spill is no problem for a Viva paper towel. For a large mess, you can clean up part of it, rinse the paper towel out, squeeze dry and continue cleaning with the same one. You can blow your nose or wipe your bum* and you won't get scratched to pieces by those lesser-quality towels.

Now, I'll be completely honest. You can't have all this goodness with zero drawbacks. There are two things that keep Viva from divine perfection (although I wouldn't be surprised if God used Viva for wiping up his milk and honey spills): lint and price.

In order to be so soft, the trade-off is lint. They have a bit more lint than, say, those brown industrial things they pass off for paper towels at businesses. So when you're cleaning glass, i.e. mirrors, windows, monitors, you'll have some lint hanging around. Not enough to notice, but if you're lint-o-phobic you just have to make a choice. Do you want soft and absorbant? or lint-free and scratchy as a briar patch? I choose soft absorbancy.

As for scientific proof, I give you Zach R's science project. Here he proves that Viva is the most absorbant paper towel! What further evidence do you need?

Issue #2: price. These are not your bargain-basement specials. If I can find them under $1/roll, I stock up. There are some things in life quality doesn't matter, like tomato paste. You never eat tomato paste plain, it's always in recipes with other stuff added in. You might as well go cheap since you won't be able to taste it specifically. But there are other things where quality matters. For us, paper towels matter. When you need to wipe up a spill, we want to know that we just need one paper towel, not the whole roll. (And believe me, we have a lot of experience in this matter.) Now, the issue of price gets tricky. Spend less per roll on crappy cheapness, use more towels. Pay top dollar for quality, use less towels. In the end, are you really paying less for those cheap rolls?

Here's how we deal with the problem. I buy Viva and then I buy super cheap napkins. If someone spills a little tiny bit, we use the cheapo napkins. We don't waste our beloved Vivas on insignificant messes. That would be like sending an Army Ranger in to deal with a shoplifting teenager. No, we conserve the royalty of the paper towel world. But when there's a mess worthy of a Viva paper towel, we're ready. We are not afraid because when messes make their appearance, Viva wipes them off the face of the planet. Boowah!

Viva paper towels...they're choice!

*If you choose to wipe your bum with these excellent paper towels, please do not flush them down the toilet. Their strength is too much for your pipes.