Plop Fizz

Conservatives - listen up.  I'm one of you!

Not really, in the way the word is typically used.  I am a strong conservative in practical living but I honestly don't know what folks even mean any more by referring to themselves as conservative as opposed to liberal.  Both of these terms are charged and pre-disposed to bring pejorative jabs thrown by someone of either persuasion.

My conservatism is expressed in actually thinking of ways to conserve.  Very likely, I use less water than do most of my fellow countrymen.  With no detailed evidence offered as to this assumption, I will simply state that it would be difficult for a typical citizen of this American society to use less water than I personally use.  I also try not to be a constant consumer of anything that can be used more efficiently.  I gladly eat left-overs and rarely throw away any food or other consumables.  My wife and I recycle, in just about every way we have discovered that recycling actually works.  We even wear a good many thrift-store clothing items, dressing in good quality rags for which others paid the big bucks and then grew tired of wearing.  We buy many household items including furniture at garage sales or Goodwill.  Certainly much of this is done in an effort to just get by financially, but if I suddenly became wealthy I would not totally cease to buy recycled goods because I think conservatively.  The cosmos needs humans to think in that vein.

In our home, you will find half-sheet paper towels on the rack.  Yes, they (Bounty, if I recall) are a little more expensive than some others, but with that half-sheet option, I find we use little more than half as many full sheets as we once used.  Ergo, a net savings results (and less to throw away).  You will find re-sealable plastic bags kept for multiple uses, sometimes even washed out and dried by a half-sheet paper towel.  We find tap water to be quite drinkable.  The thermostat in our home is at 79 degrees when cooling and at 68 when heating. 

Many years ago, I began to notice how often humans do things not because we have clearly thought out a plan and followed it, but because some clever marketing idea got established in our heads.  Remember the television commercials for Alka Seltzer a good number of years ago?  Plop,plop - fizz,fizz, oh what a relief it is - all set to a jingle tune that stuck in the brain?  How many more antacid tablets do you suppose they sold over the years simply by planting that idea of two tablets dropping into the glass to create that fizz-fizz?  It simply occurred to me one day that I - a person who never needed two aspirin for a minor headache relief - did not need to use both tablets from a packet to gain the acid relief I desired.  So for decades, I have dropped one tablet into the glass and waited for the one fizz while folding over the packet tightly to await my next antacid need.  And I have never had any problem created by refusing that second plop & fizz.  Same for those fizzing cold or allergy medications.

Label me liberal if you like because I believe it's best to live-and-let-live, to help the masses where possible with whatever generosity I can offer but to leave individuals alone with their personal pursuits of happiness; yet when it comes to how I govern my own use of resources available for my consumption, I am so conservative I would probably shock the average person.  And how many conservatives do you know who make much effort to actually conserve?  Labels are typically narrowly focused and often extremely misleading.

Thinking of the whole business gives me heartburn; I may need to try a plop-fizz.