I never thought I'd miss Mr. Whipple. You remember him - the character played by Dick Wilson whose famous admonition, "Please don't squeeze the Charmin," was meant to embarrass hundreds of sufferers of a secret toilet paper obsession who staked out the aisles of grocery stores to grope rolls of irresistibly soft paper products.

Back in his heyday, I thought Mr. Whipple was hokey and the people who created the character cornier, still. Who sits around thinking of an imaginary grocer who catches housewives midsqueeze with a package of TP?

It turns out the people who thought of the Mr. Whipple ads for Charmin are a whole lot more genteel than the folks who now produce the company's advertising. At least the old team knew when to use euphemisms to describe the benefits of their product.

Quite simply, the current ads, featuring two annoying and overly graphic cartoon bears demonstrating the coarser points of personal hygiene, offer us consumers too much information. To wit: Last night, while drifting off to sleep in front of the television, I awoke to a voice assuring me that Charmin leaves less paper behind on the ... er ... well ... behind.

Let's all respond together: Yuck.

I don't make New Year's resolutions. First, when it comes to resolutions, I'm a pathetic cliche. I start out with determination and commitment and end, roughly a week later, in a pool of chocolate.

My problem is that making resolutions for the New Year feels like entering a perpetual state of Lent, which is sometimes doable for 40 days, but for a lifetime is the definition of hell. Or failure. Or both.

Second, I don't make resolutions because doing so strikes me as shallow and self-serving. Most resolutions tend to have at their core a benefit only for the one who is resolved. As such, these promises are easily broken, and thus, the probable cause of a spike in chip consumption only a month after the annual rise in sales of exercise apparel.

If the problem with New Year's resolutions is that they are punishing promises meant to serve only the one who is resolved, then it might follow that resolutions could be more successfully maintained and more useful to society if they were the opposite. They should be easy to do and meant to improve the lot in life of others, not just ourselves.

Our Santa act peaked in 1997.

That year, with four children ages 8, 6, 3 and newborn, we pulled out all the stops to convince our young brood that a bearded man in a red, fur suit had, in fact, magically popped down our chimney to reward their good behavior with toys and treats.

Santa used his own special gift-wrap - hidden away from the rest of the wrapping paper to foil any deductive reasoning (not that the children employed any, but we took no chances).

He filled out the gift tags in his characteristic penmanship - very different from mom's handwriting, to be sure, with a pen that could not be traced to the top drawer of her desk.

He left crumbs near the fireplace from the cookies he dutifully ate, but just to be coy, he didn't finish his milk. He took the carrots the children left out for his reindeer, and wrote a note saying, "Thanks for the snack! Be good this year! Love, S.C."

Best - and most convincing of all - he and his reindeer left pieces of carrot on the roof above our front porch - evidence that the jolly elf had taken them up the chimney and fed them to his hungry team.

I'm in my home office down the hall from the kitchen, so I can't hear exactly what the fuss is about, but I assume it has something to do with unloading the dishwasher.

Awhile ago, I asked Jimmy and Amy to unload and reload, sweep the kitchen floor, wipe down the counters and vacuum the rug, and out of respect for their growing maturity, I didn't specify who should do what. I just said, "Split the chores in a way that feels fair."

Now, there is bickering. Did I say growing maturity? Maybe not.

I head down the hall to impart some maternal direction. That's when I hear what can be described only as "KP corruption."

"Jimmy, I'll give you a dollar if you empty the dishwasher. I promise. For real," Amy says in her whiniest voice.

"No, Amy," my son answers. Is he standing for principled kitchen duty or a better offer? I can't say. But I'm starting to worry because both of these children already love politics, and with this sort of conversation taking place in the kitchen, I wonder if there's a wiretap in their future.

Sometimes you don't even have to read the story. Just the headline can drive home the realization that our culture is in trouble.

Case in point: Sunday's Detroit News story entitled, "School autopsy tours canceled; Oakland County stops trips to medical examiner's office after kids see exam of girl from their district."

Let's read that aloud, shall we? All together now: "School autopsy tours canceled." [Emphasis added for obvious reasons].

There is so much that's wrong in this story beyond the headline that I don't really know where to begin, so I'll start with a little over-simplistic analysis just to get the ball rolling.

Public health officials love the parable of the floating babies. You may have heard it -- the townspeople are gathered at the riverbank for a celebration when suddenly they notice a baby struggling to stay afloat in the river's rushing waters. Someone runs to save the baby when he notices another one coming from upstream. More and more babies now come rushing down the river as the people of the town quickly make a human chain to try to save the infants.

Then, the story goes, a few townsfolk begin to run upstream along the riverbank. Someone yells to them, "Where are you going?"

"We're going to find out who is throwing these babies into the river and stop them!"

And the moral, of course, is that we can't just rescue those who are caught in the current of health risk; we have to look for the source of the problem if we're going to make real, systemic change.

Welcome to the riverbank.

It must be the result of an official safety study, conducted by at least three highly trained traffic engineers, culminating in the adoption of a policy on interstate snow removal.

Said policy, because it reflects "best practices" as well as a full spectrum of litigation-avoidance measures, now must demand that the highway be cleared of snow while simultaneously being treated with an anti-icing agent — salt or sand, or more likely, some chemically perfect combination of the two.

I have no doubt this policy is dutifully followed after having been reviewed by the head of the road commission only weeks ago, when it was presented with all due authority at a meeting of professional snow-removal technicians.

This is the only explanation I can imagine for the illogical traffic jam in which I have, for the past 27 miles, crawled down the interstate while ahead of me three snowplows ride abreast across the entire expanse of expressway, slowing the midday flow of cars to a maddening 15 miles per hour.

"Hey, Mom. Check out the tacky Christmas house," my daughter says as we drive home from the grocery store. "They've already started putting out all their junky decorations, and it isn't even Thanksgiving yet."

Ah, yes. The humbling moment when you realize you are raising a holiday snob.

Clearly, I've spent too much time through the years driving around town bashing the early onset of lights and lawn ornaments that pop up in mid-November.

It's been just a week since the historic election that will put President-elect Barack Obama in the White House on Jan. 20, and we can expect that he'll move quickly to bring about the change he promised for two years on the campaign trail.

However, I hope we're not expecting Mr. Obama to do what must be done for America's children.

Wait a minute - didn't we just endure roughly 36 months of rallies and rhetoric promising to restore good government, economic security and unlimited opportunity for our children? Didn't Mr. Obama assure us he knows how to make this a safer world for the next generation?

Didn't he invoke "America's children" while taking the moral high ground on every issue from the federal debt and the price of crude to greed on Wall Street and anger on Main Street?

He did. And I have no doubt he meant every word of what he said. But I also know one thing for sure: This president will not do what must be done to assure a safe, bountiful and productive future for America's children.

That's because no president can.

I'm loath to offend anyone, but given the statistics I just read, I'm heading that way with every sentence.

So here's my disclaimer: If you happen to be one of those adults who loves Halloween and gets into the spirit of things - to the point of dressing in costume, for example - this column is not about you per se. It's about those other adults.

According to the National Retail Federation's annual survey, spending for Friday's Halloween festivities is predicted to go up as "consumers look to escape everyday realities."

Makes perfect sense to me. We're in the midst of an economic crisis unlike any other in history, so what do America's adults do to take the edge off? Why, spend more on Halloween, of course.