Tom Hanks Vs. Bath Puffs

The Case For Tom Hanks

Well, come on.

Tom Hanks is a national treasure! He loves his wife, loves outer space, really loves WWII veterans. It's been years sincehe made a movie or even gave an interview containing anything that could potentially piss anyone off -- and that includes the time he played a gay man dying of AIDS. (Maybe that's because he managed to placate progressives by portraying a homosexual without any campy mannerisms, while also avoiding freaking out conservatives by never giving his character's live-in lover so much as a peck on the lips.)

Hanks is also beloved by his peers, who awarded him back to back Oscars in the '90s. He's the second biggest movie star named Tom in the world. And he's planning to win back the hordes who read but one novel per decade by headlining the highly anticipated movie version of The Da Vinci Code, presumably win back an audience for whom the Toy Story franchise is too cerebral.

Well played, Hanks.

The Case For Bath Puffs

Surely we all remember where we were when one cultural commentator asked the question that would change our lives:

"But Ironhead! What's with this thingy?"

The "thingy" in question was, of course, a bath puff: a personal hygiene product meant to be used in concert with liquid body wash. Resembling nothing so much as a flowering koosh ball made out of mesh, the bath puff represented a giant leap forward in bathing technology.

Finally, we could experience lather such as we'd never sen outside the movies, where a capful of bubble bath magically generates foam as thick as meringue. Now we, too, could turn a dime-sized dollop of shower gel into double handfuls of lather -- and it worked just as well with bar soap!

Truly, we were living in a golden age of cleanliness. Where soap was concerned, the bath puff had made us like unto gods.

The Decision

Tom Hanks has been showered with awards, fêted by the AFI, and tongue-bathed by co-stars and directors alike. But even if you really, really like him a lot, do you start every morning with one of his movies? Does he help you to smell better? Do you take him with you into the shower and rub him all over your body? (Rita Wilson, if you are reading this: your answer to this putatively rhetorical question may be yes on all counts, but you must know you're the exception that proves the rule.)

If this were a battle between Tom Hanks and Facecloths, perhaps the double Oscar winner might have a shot. But the bath puff has become so indispensable to us that there simply is no credible argument in Hanks's favour.

The Winner

Bath Puffs