Plastic

I fucked up recently. I was judging a debate and in my notes to the debaters I mentioned a recent large-scale drug bust, citing a street value of “billions” and that should have been “millions.” I was probably just weirded out by the time warp that had just happened because the debate was about Plan Colombia, which I think actually pre-dated all of the debaters by a few years. The points about economics that I was trying to make are valid regardless, if made a little underwhelming by my being off by a factor of 1000. Anyway, I was starting to write a note this evening but wanted to confirm some numbers on plastic, which led me to trash in the oceans, which led me to New Zealand, which led me to sex toys. NZ has (depending on source) the highest or one of the highest percentages of reported ownership at something ~38%.  So for what follows, you can blame cocaine, Plan Colombia, my horrible short term memory and New Zealand.

Now, I don’t know how true this is, but I came across a study that indicated the top 10 states for sex toy sales, per capita, are all northern states like Alaska, Montana, Maine and Idaho. Which makes sense I guess, since it’s quite often too cold to go out and find someone to have sex with. West Virginia was in there as well, but I’m not going to try to explain anything West Virginia. I can’t even justify its existence; merge it with Virginia, we let Puerto Rico be a state and we don’t even have to change the orders for 50-star flags that are being made in China.

Anyway it was in my Internet rabbit-holing, wait, backup, I feel like there needs to be a different turn of phrase here than “rabbit-holing”. If I’m doing a weird research chain that ends in a discussion of sex toys, “rabbit holing” is way too on the money here. Deep-dive? No. Hard search? No. Fuck it, there’s no way not to innuendo this. First off, the sex toy industry is worth something like $15 billion (used accurately this time). Now my initial reaction is to suggest that for one year we join together as a world, take whatever money we were going to spend on sex toys, donate it to a “giant dildo fund” and use the money to buy out Trump and put his businesses in the fucking ground. How great would it be if every time he used his name he violated a trademark someone else owns? But I recognize the futility there.  Second thing, that is A LOT of sex toys. By comparison the world has had, last I checked, about a thousand nuclear test detonations and something like 4,000-5,000 nuclear weapons. We can bomb people, but not feed them, I’m just saying. You could give a sex toy to every person in America (citizen or not) and still have enough left over for Mexico, Cuba and probably Canada too, where it’s often much too cold to go out and find someone to have sex with.

As it happens, I’ve purchased four sex toys. One was a Hello Kitty vibrator (because, Japan) that I gave as a gag gift to a friend in Colorado who’s room when I knew her looked like Sanrio spontaneously combusted. One came with some porn tape (yeah, tape, on VHS, fuck you, I’m not that old) that I bought when I was 18, just because I was 18 and I could, and at this point, I kind of want to find the tape so I can watch it again and critique the script. The last two were purchased to use with someone and one of them actually made really effective, really awkward paperweight when I was in the habit of keeping my mail on the nightstand next to the lamp. Here’s the problem though, not really environmentally friendly. It’s probably less than bags, but still a lot of plastic.

Slight quasi-tangent, I need to share this logo: http://www.sextoyrecycling.com/about.html

I’m not super tree-huggy. I donate to the Sierra Club because I think it’s probably a good idea to support people who are trying to make sure the air is breathable, but I feel guilty about it because they mail me the magazine. I get it in the mail and it’s just “ah crap, they killed more trees so they tell me about some animal going extinct and I’m not even going to read about it. Tree’s think they’re so high and mighty, fuck trees.” But I really don’t like waste. I’m the type of person who reuses Styrofoam trays as plates for sandwiches or the furikake jars as orange juice glasses.  So it seems like a giant waste when all the sex toys get thrown out. Despite the link above, I don’t think recycling is really an option. If you figure the average sex toy probably ~$30, that’s roughly half a billion of these things just sitting in landfills or floating away at sea. Hm, Castaway would have been a very different movie if Tom Hanks’ best friend was Ben Wa. Anyway, I’ve got a better idea. Just leave them somewhere in your closet for when you die.  

I was recently updating my will and advanced medical directive forms. Even if you don’t have kids, it’s a good idea to set these up. . If you do have kids, it’s goddamn irresponsible not to have this stuff worked out. In doing these updates, I realized that when I die, someone is going to have to go through my stuff. I mean, most of what I have can be chucked into the ‘donate’ bin. But someone still has to go through it. So at some point between now and when I die, and operating under the assumption that it’ll be my kid in a few decades that has to go through all my shit, I’m going to buy a bunch of sex toys, and hide them around in places. It’s like the world’s worst scavenger hunt.  Was this used? When was this used? How was this used? Who used this? Amidst all of the grief (hopefully), I think it’ll be a nice distraction to mull that over. Note to my kid: be careful opening my safety deposit box at the bank. So I suggest this as an alternative to simply throwing them out. And if you’re a kid who has to go through your parents’ stuff who happens to come across something, just pass them down like horrible family heirlooms. Like Bruce Willis’ watch in Pulp Fiction it’ll carry a story and like Bruce Willis tossing that submachine gun right before he pulls the pistol taped to his back at the end of Die Hard, it’ll be a good distraction. Thanks Bruce Willis.

Oh hell, I never got around to writing that note about plastic in the oceans.