Keep the napkins in the glove box

Because the moment arrives without warning and the accounts have the list. Five separate conversations say the napkins are for the body more than the burger: a nosebleed, a child who is sick, an upset stomach that will not wait, a cry on the way home from something. Two conversations add spills and bird droppings, and single accounts have used them as emergency toilet paper, as a wipe to check the oil, and as a liner for the small bag of rubbish the car collects. The people here are honest about how ordinary this is: eleven accounts said they already kept napkins or tissues in the car, and six and four more said the same in other notes — so if you are one of them, this page is confirmation, and if you are not, one account says the same of themselves: never once needed one.

Each has a camp, and the people here argue it in five exchanges. Napkins against wipes, four accounts to two in one conversation: napkins are free and dry and fine for ordinary mess, wipes clean properly and handle the personal messes — and two cautions say wipes dry out in a hot car unless they are sealed, one says they are not very absorbent for a liquid spill, and one exchange, one account to two, says they leave lint on a dashboard or do not, depending on the brand. Loose napkins against a roll of paper towel, two conversations and two accounts: the roll stays in one place, holds together wet and does not scatter across the footwell. Then the other argument: pads and puppy pads against everything else, three accounts to four in one conversation and three to four in another — the pads side says nothing absorbs a large spill like a sanitary pad or a pet training pad and they double as first aid for a nosebleed or a scrape; the other side says a roll of paper towel is cheaper, has less plastic, and you will not run out of pads on the day you need one for their actual purpose, a caution one account made plainly. The accounts’ own decider is the mess — paper for crumbs and small spills, something more absorbent for liquid — and the climate, because heat kills wipes. Single accounts keep a microfibre cloth or a kitchen towel that washes and goes back, and one keeps compressed towel tablets that expand in water. For a sick passenger, two conversations say containment matters more than absorbency: double-bag it, or keep sealable bags for the purpose, because one caution says a car that has been sick in and wiped without bagging keeps the smell.

The accounts asked that too, three to three in one conversation and three to four in another, and the answer they gave each other was that some accounts had never considered it and a few had never needed it — one account says they have never once been in a situation that called for a napkin, and most of the others answered with the time they had. One exchange runs three accounts to two on whether a glove box of drive-through napkins says something about your diet; the accounts’ answer is that the napkins were coming home anyway and one account simply buys a cheap pack instead. Three accounts solve the whole problem by allowing no food or drink in the car, which works until the nosebleed. Two small cautions to finish: one account says an over-stuffed glove box that will not quite shut can leave its little lamp on and flatten the battery, and one caution says hot days ruin both the napkins and the wipes if they are loose. Where else to keep them — door pockets, the boot, the seat-back — and how to clean the stain the napkin left behind are gaps in these conversations. And if you came here for the engine, the tyres or the brakes: these conversations are filed under car maintenance and hold none of it — a gap in these conversations.