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Warehouse Roulette – Carnage on the Counter
May 10, 2012 5:30 am | by
I’ve been bugged by Jenn and others to write posts on the blog for a long time, but I didn’t want to have to figure out what to write about while staying somewhat on topic. So the obvious solution was to write about random things in the warehouse. What will it be this week, no one knows! Warehouse roulette! To make it fun and very random, I put all of the warehouse locations in a box, mixed it up, mixed it up some more, changed my mind, mixed it up some more counter clockwise with a spork and drew a location. 
 
This week I drew the humble plastic bowl. The innocent looking piece of plastic that has caused millions of hours of cleanup, countless cutesy pictures with spaghetti on the head and occasionally actually contains the food munchkin is supposed to eat. There are times when I wondered what the point of putting food in the bowl was. Why not skip the step and put the food on the tray/table/head from the get-go? But being the good parents we are, we continue to put food in the bowl, knowing the half life of the food staying in the bowl is about 15 seconds.
 
It’s amazing how many different types of bowls there are. Ever look through your cubbards and inventory how many types of bowls you have? It’s obnoxious. Salad bowls, soup bowls, serving bowls, kids’ plastic bowls, mixing bowls, metal mixing bowls, fancy pants bowls, extra fancy pants bowls we never use but spent a fortune on because we needed something to pretty up the box it’s stored in. Crazy. I think the bowls and coffee mugs some a rivalry going to see who can clutter up the kitchen the fastest. The bowls have the disadvantage of stacking tighter in the cupboard, so the coffee cups feel like they have the upper hand, until they day is done and the dish carnage is strewn across the counter top and the bowls seize the high ground. Victory!
So what makes these bowls special and why do we have them in our store? Well, they’re round. And they’re made from recycled milk cartons, which is pretty cool. They’re made by Green Toys, a company that makes a wide array of fun plastic toys and tablewares. All of their products are made from recycled milk cartons right here/there in  California. I really like the dump truck and the garbage.. err… recycling truck, but the little race cars are growing on me. The flowers are cute too and would make a good Mothers’ Day gift (see, I worked it in). 
 
Walking around and kicking the tires on the packaging shows a dedication to well inflated tires, and recycled cardboard. The best part about Green Toys packaging is the lack of twisty ties holding everything down to prevent parents from playing with the toys.  Does the leg of the doll that is packed in a form fitting plastic shell really need three twisty ties and tape to hold it in place? I know FedEx and others have drop tests, but they aren’t that demanding. It’s only 30 inches. 
 
Other fun things to note: Tazones sounds a lot sexier than bowls. The tazones are dishwasher safe, hallelujah. Scrubbing dried on oatmeal just sucks. Rice usually pops off, but cereal dries like glue. I like our dishwasher. It’s worth the extra money to buy a quiet dishwasher. Once you have a quiet one, you wonder how you didn’t go insane with old noisy waaaaaaah, waaaaaah, waaaaaah. If the dishwasher is quiet, you run it more often, which means fewer dishes on the counter. Or, more dishes on the counter because no one wants to empty the dishwasher and it’s always full of clean dishes. Either way, don’t use Cascade. If you have white crap all over your black plastic and the inside of your dishwasher, stop using Cascade. Use Finish instead. Finish will actually clean the dishes and not ruin your plastic ware. Running a cup of vinegar through a wash cycle will help remove the white gunk and keep the tubes clean too.
The plastic ware is not microwave safe. Which is ok, since it’s generally not a good idea to microwave things in plastic anyways. Just use one of the myriad of other bowls lurking in the cupboard to nuke the food first. 
 
The geek in me likes the detail of the little plastic pellets in the life cycle diagram. At scale they could be bowling balls since they are turning into bowls, but I’m pretty sure they are plastic pellets. Bowling balls would be more exciting tho. Image the machine needed to crush bowling balls down to little bits. Munch munch munch…. Speaking of crushing things. Poor hippos. Genius. 
 
— Jimmy
 
“Keep smiling, it makes everyone wonder what you’re up to.”
 
PS – How many are surprised I made it through the entire post without switching bowel for bowl? Or did I?
 
copyright 2012 Cotton Babies, Inc – Carnage on the Counter

About the Author

Jimmy Labit is a full-time dad and has a lot of experience with cloth diapers. He takes care of the technical side of Cotton Babies when he isn't trying to juggle four kids. He is the male voice of Beyond The Diaper and brings a unique and quirky sense of humor to our blog.

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