On toilet paper

Do you stress out when you can’t use your favorite brand of toilet paper? Toilet paper is advertised on television all the time, but no one really talks about the in’s and out’s of toilet paper–stronger paper versus softer and gentler–it’s a real ethical dilemma. Europeans invented the bidet so they wouldn’t have to face this problem, but bidets are going out of style, and the use of toilet paper is becoming more widespread and problematic. I prefer softer and gentler and risk tearing the paper–it seems like an even trade. Some people just don’t care or at least they pretend not to care. You might find strips of the local newspaper cut up into squares in their bathroom, which is very economical, and an interesting commentary on the newspaper, but I imagine it’s not very absorbent or comfortable. Let’s face it, using the newspaper to wipe your behind cannot be the least bit practical. I’ve always found that the engineering behind toilet paper must be rather strange. At least the commercials announcing toilet paper are some of the strangest on television featuring odd sales people, bears, puppies, and host of other freak show drop outs, but have you ever discussed the brand you use with your friends? Are you a two-ply person or a single-ply person. Are you an over the top person or one of those barbarians that puts the new roll on the spindle upside down and backwards? Or are you really careless and will use any old thing to wipe with? Most toilet paper is white now because the scientists have told us that colored toilet paper is bad for our butts, as well as the perfume they used to put in it. Why would anyone put little flowers on toilet paper? Or why should toilet paper be light green or perhaps some weird pink? Have you ever had to use someone else’s bathroom and found that the roll was empty and had to search around under the sink or in the linen closet to find a fresh roll? And then you couldn’t find one? Then you realize that they have hidden the new rolls of toilet paper inside the glass kitty cat that sits in the corner that you thought was kinda creepy. What I hate is to use a public bathroom only to find that someone else has used (or taken) all the toilet paper, and now I have a problem. Do you carry your own when you go out? Perhaps you are one of those people who has never really given toilet paper much thought, taking for granted that it will always be there, and that you will always have enough. Maybe you toilet-papered a favorite teacher’s house when you were fifteen. Toilet paper, however, is not the stuff out of which dreams are made, unless you own the company that makes billions and billions of little white squares, connects them up into rolls, and sells them everywhere. You can’t really write on toilet paper, nor should wrap delicate gifts in it–remember bubble wrap? I am usually slightly dismayed by those who would use toilet paper as a tissue to blow their nose, which means they ran out of tissue or just don’t care what they stick up to their nose. Men should not use toilet paper to stop the bleeding if they cut themselves while shaving. You know, toilet paper is not like a Swiss Army Knife–it doesn’t have a million and one uses.