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Patient Joab and his evil cohort, Patient Steve, develop a proposal for the plastic-v.-paper problem that EVERYONE can be happy with. An EXCLUSIVE from Spock Mountain Research Labs!

It's a question that troubles every grocery shopping excursion: paper or plastic? Either choice has its drawbacks: Choose plastic bags and environmentalists will whine that eventually you'll be mummy wrapping your ancestors in the stuff. But if paper is your choice, environmentalists will complain that you might as well shave mountaintops with ozone-powered razors. Certainly there must be an environmentally safe way of carrying home our heaps of Crystal Light, oodles of styrofoam cups of noodles, afro-lacquer, pork balloons, and radon test kits.

Fortunately, we here at the Spock Mountain Research Labs' East Coast Chemical Composites Division have put considerable science into the matter and have arrived at what, we feel, is an optimum approach. Here's how it works: consumers should be encouraged to use *only* paper bags until all the trees have been safely removed from our environment. Then an all-plastic solution should be implemented.

So when your sack lad asks, `Paper or plastic?' your choice is easy: choice Redwoods, ground up and reconstituted into convenient paper bags.

The nice thing about this approach, which we call PlastiPlan (TM), is that not only will it make life easier for the consumer, but will also uproot this land's burden of overforestation. That's right, overforestation is a growing problem - few realize how trees have run amuck all over this great planet of ours. Why, those knotty nest levitators are everywhere! Can you believe that we still have trees in most major cities, even when the government's Tupperware supplies have dwindled to alarmingly low levels, due to lack of space? Clearing the land of those overgrown bed posts will give us plenty of room for more plastic hatcheries, which could pump out multitudes of plastic bags.

Comparing paper with plastic without question reveals plastic's innate superiority. Plastic bags alone have an infinite number of additional uses. They're perfect for wrapping venison after a hunting trip. They make great otter bait and can be used to give your child hours, or at least approximately 7.5 minutes, of fun-time. Trees, on the other hand, have relatively few purposes. In fact, we wish they'd all "leave" right now... Now!

Now, we hear that sap-sucking liberals are belly-aching about plastic's finest features. Environmental groups show pictures of seals who died because they foolishly entangled their bloody snouts in our masterful examples of technology. But we see in those photos that even our salty sea buddies have learned of one of plastic's most "enduring" qualities -- its resistance to decomposition!

Plastic never dies. While nature's soon-to-be-outdated flowers consistently wilt in the fall, plastic flowers never lose their freshness! In fact, cheaper organic flowers can't even withstand a little acid rain! When an old fashioned forest burns, it takes years it takes years to rekindle its growth for future kindling. Yet when ready-made PlastiScape (TM) forests melt, they can immediately be reformed into useful items, like lawn and leaf bags, or Bic lighters!

Of course, plastic bags are but one step to a total plastic solution. Imagine rippling rivers of Reynolds Wrap, and astro-fields where your mechanical pet's mechanical fecal matter can be easily hosed away. Ken, dipped in the Stay Hard Tank, and Barbie, with her silicon impacted polyethylene dispensers, can forever frolic in an H-O Lego Land, unhindered by nature's antiquated and confused ways. Yeeeaaahhh, man.

wary@pigdog.org