Baby Wipes of Death

As a mother I tend to keep things like band-aids, candy and stickers on hand for various emergency situations. These emergencies can be anything from cuts and scrapes on the playground to an emo sitch at The Disney Store. I also tend to keep my vehicle well-stocked. The backseat of the familyYaris Sedan is loaded with things like kid toys and extra clothes and shoes.

Baby wipes are also a staple for moms. Recently, I picked up some generic wipes in an easy-to-distribute pop-up container at a local discount store. The cartoon picture on the canister was of bright, shiny, happy kids on a playground. The wipes were touted as being hypoallergenic, perfect for the sensitive skin genes I passed on to Gillian.

As it turned out, my five year old daughter was not the first person to use the wipes. After a fun grown up girls' nite at a local Mexican restaurant I decided along with Holly and our childhood friend PJ, to make a run to a local drug store. They were having a sale on our favorite cheap make-up. We piled into the Yaris (after PJ made room for her grow-up self in my packed back seat) and I cracked the seal on my new wipes as we all felt the need to degrease ourselves a bit after dinner. As I opened the can, the smell that wafted up into my eyes, nose and lungs made me gasp, sneeze and cough all at once. The chemical slightly-cholrine bleachy smell was over whelming. I rolled down the window and gasped for air. Holly and PJ rolled their windows down as well, laughing at me for being so cheap as to buy no-name, generic brand baby wipes. I was grateful that I hadn't tried them on Gillian first. Her baby soft skin may have actually dissolved, or at least have suffered chemical burns as a result.

But for some reason (I'm gonna guess it was out of laziness), I did not toss the can of wipes. I kept them in my car. They were good for other things, like getting melted candy out of my car's cup holders. Once, I even used a toxic wipe to polish the dashboard and steering wheel while I waited for Brian and Gillian to exit the grocery store. It seemed the wipes were good for cleaning everything except people.

I guess I forgot to mention that to brian. Poor guy. After eating a dinner of Long John Slivers (I swear my fam does not consume that much greasy food--these events were weeks apart)Brian used a wipe-of-death on his face and hands. He had a bit of a cold and couldn't smell the wipe itself (the first cloud of noxious gas that I inhaled upon unsealing the can seemed to be a one time occurence). But he sure could feel the burning on his face and hands!! "OH MY GOOOOOODDDD! What ARE these things?!" I heard from the direction of our parked car. Gilly and I were examining the local flora and fauna offerings of the local grocery store's pop-up green house. We had decided to 'shop off' some of our LJS dinner. Gillian and I rushed over to our fallen family member. Brian was outside the car, bent over, his hands covering his face.
"Are you okay Brian?" Gilly asked, concerned. "I thought these were BABY WIPES!!!" He said with clenched eyes, shaking the canister in the air.
I couldn't help but laugh. Really, unnecessarily hard. Not quite ugly laughing, but close. "I'm sorry!" I squealed. "They are! They are baby wipes!" Brian dropped the can onto the ground and stumbled over to the greenhouse where he grabbed a garden hose that he had almost tripped over. It was still trickling and he dribbled the tepid water over his face. He wiped off with his shirt and glared at me from behind his glasses w/ red, raw eyes. I was biting my lip, trying not to smile. "I'm sorry." I said failing at my attempts to hold in my guffaws. I don't know why I found it to be so funny, his misery. But I did and I couldn't help it.

"Are those baby wipes for kids you HATE?" He said, still out of breath. "WHY would ANYONE put that stuff on their kid's SKIN? The kids would look like the Joker!" I lost it then. Brian laughed, too and Gillian chimed in with her silly, snorty giggle. We were quite a sight to onlookers, I am sure. But then again, aren't we always?

Needless to say, I DID NOT tell Brian that I had relagated the toxic wipes to car-cleaning duty. He ended up trashing them as soon as we got home. But that doesn't mean I won't buy more. I'll just have to hide them under the driver's seat or something.

I mean, those things got MELTED SUCKER out of my car seat!! Amazing!