At the end of this November, strange cases of smelly towels have been noticed in Jackson, Wyoming. The objects where reported to carry malicious odours. These closely resembled those of wet dogs, or stinky feet, according to the description of the locals. In all cases the talk was of paper towels that where piled up in restrooms all across town. The peculiar event has made the object of serious inquiries.



The investigation was carried out by the Jackson Hole News and Guide and it is thanks to the efforts of this agency that more precise data has been gathered on the topic. It seems that the malodorous pieces where present in most the twenty Teton County government buildings and in six businesses. Certainly not a number to be neglected!

Melissa Shinkle, an employee of the counties clerk office, informs us that the odorous towel scandal emerged only after this phenomenon became noticeable and even than some time had to pass before it was discussed intensively. There was no warning that this reality would unfold. Suddenly, here and there, people began noticing that a daily event was happening upside down: the hands bore an awful smell after the process of hand washing, when you would usually expect the opposite. So, from person to person the mere gossip ended out as a local scandal.

It was later discovered that the culprits for the negative show were High Country Linen, an enterprise owned by Mayor Mark Barron, which carried out the process of the distribution of the smelly paper towels this September. Barron however faced the problem rapidly. He claimed having begun investigations after just five or six complaint calls. In fact, this company is not the original cause for the happening, for it receives its material from SCA Tissue North America in Neenah, Wis, where it is manufactured, according to the information provided by Eric Vic, the manager of High County Linen. The vice president of the company responsible with the manufacturing, Ron Thirty, mentioned that this type of event is of extremely rare occurrence among their products and has shown astonishment towards it.

This unfortunate episode is part of the list of those that are linked to the current economical world, which is mainly made up of large scale production and distribution. The benefits are of course huge, because almost all get the choice of sharing the products and services, but once something goes wrong, the consequences are also of large scale.