BALTIMORE — Women scientists at Johns Hopkins have agreed that gift bags must contain a bare minimum of 63 pieces of perfectly crinkled tissue paper.
"Decades of research confirm that anything less than sixty-three pieces is an absolute abomination," said head scientist Sherri Webster. "There is simply no way to produce the gift bag's desired effect with anything less."
Women throughout the years have tried a variety of paper-crumpling techniques, but none have been able to drop the number of needed pieces below 63. "We want to stress that this is the bare minimum number, only to be used by an expert tissue folder," said Hallmark scientist Doreen Smith. "Ideally, most women should be using 75 pieces for a standard-size gift bag. There must be the perfect balance of chaos and precision, such that the tissue paper does not look messy, but still retains the element of whimsy. It's such a delicate equilibrium."
Researchers estimate that in 2023 alone, women will exchange approximately 50 billion pounds of tissue paper. "You could cover the earth 17 times with all of the tissue paper women will give each other this year," said math professor Dr. Ryan Billings. "Even more incredibly, none of this tissue paper will be reused, as the initial act of crinkling cannot, apparently, be repeated in a satisfactory fashion. If we ever run out of oil, we can just start burning tissue paper and we'll be set."
At publishing time, male scientists have agreed that using anything more than two pieces of tissue paper automatically makes you a woman.
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