DO YOU SQUEEZE THE TUBE FROM THE BOTTOM OR FROM THE TOP?
Granted, this is rather a silly question on Christmas Eve but it has been on my mind of late.
When I was a kid the issue never came up ...Until...
And Until it did, I merrily squeezed to my heart's desire from the 'top of the tube'.
'Until' occurred one day when my mother returned from her nursing shift at the local hospital. It was in the 1960s don't you know.
A Doctor that particular day had had a major rant about the waste associated with squeezing tooth paste tubes from the top down...the only sensible and indeed apparently moral way to squeeze a tube was from the bottom up.
Back in those days the words of Doctors were taken as sacrosanct and hence from then on my mother went to war on anyone in our household who squeezed the tube the wrong way.
From that day on, my sister, brother and I were guilted into proper squeezing. That said, knowing my sister she probably squeezed the tube the 'proper way' from the get go.
All to say when I finally left home I left behind proper squeezing..back to the top for me.
Just the other day, I was about to brush my teeth and this all came back to me. Of course, I was about to squeeze from the top and thought back to my mother's obsession caused by a pompous doctor.
(You would have thought the guy would have had better things to occupy his mind even then than how best to squeeze tooth paste even in the 1960s !)
And I got to thinking what the hell does it matter which end you squeeze a tube from ...in the end, the damn tube is empty nonetheless.
I wish my mother was still alive so I could have a last set her straight and put that Doc figuratively in his place.
So now I can go back to squeezing the tube from whichever end I want.
On that note - Merry Christmas to All.
'K.D. Galagher'
