BIG Wet Ones...

Everyone who's ever taken a shower has an idea. It's the person who gets out of the shower, dries off and does something about it who makes a difference.
~~~~~Nolan Bushnell


As it's been said...Necessity is mother of invention. I thought it apropos after reading the following story featured in Army Times.

How cool that someone took a problem, pondered a solution, and executed a plan to remedy that need! Ingenuity at it's best, now to be tested in our space program. Pretty cool, eh? Oh wait, you might want to read the story I'm rambling on about...

Big towelettes used in war zone are space-bound

By Dirk Lammers - The Associated Press
Posted : Sunday Apr 4, 2010 15:06:32 EDT

TEA, S.D. — Oversized moist towelettes that have been helping overseas soldiers freshen up in battlefields devoid of showers are about to embark on a more celestial mission.

A shipment of specially compressed and dehydrated Klenz towels is scheduled to hitch a ride aboard Space Shuttle Discovery on Monday for use by U.S. astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

NASA found the South Dakota company while searching the Internet for U.S. hygiene towels similar to what the Russians were sending up to their cosmonauts, said Jessica Fichuk, a NASA project manager.

Astronauts can rip open the foil packages, pour four ounces of water onto the 2-foot-by-3-foot cloths and be ready to clean up within seconds.

“Just like when you are camping, these are what you use when you don’t have access to a shower,” Fichuk said.

The idea for the “Klenz XXL Shower in a Towel” came to Hartford native Troy Edberg in 1993 while he was a Marine on patrol in Somalia, where soldiers were struggling to find any available baby wipes to keep clean.

“We’d be out for 10 days without a shower,” Edberg said. “We’d have like a wet wipe or something, a little one.”

Edberg figured it’d make more sense to have one big towel instead of having to burn through 80 smaller ones, but he didn’t pursue the idea until 2004 when he pitched it to Vince McCormick, owner of the Hartford health and fitness center where he worked out.

McCormick loved the idea, but it took nearly four years to bring the product to the market. [...]

What's even better is that they've been given to the USO to include in their care packages. That's one of the things I've heard and read over the last few years of sending those little boxes of love to 'Our Guys' out on the front lines..."send wet ones, baby wipes, or moist toweletts as some of our soldiers don't have access to showers while out in the field."

Now you can send them a shower in a pouch! Be sure to do the clicky click thing on the title link to find out how you can order some of these big wet ones to include in your own box of love from home. Heck, it might be a good idea to keep a few packs of them for yourself. Ya never know what the future holds for us here on the home front.

Kudos to Troy Edberg, the Marine who found a solution to the need of personal hygiene after being down in the dirt.



And so it goes......