Love it or hate it, toilet roll is pretty important in our lives. Yet who would think it can be such a problematic thing?
Firstly, there’s the big debate as to whether you have it rolling out from the front or the back of your toilet roll holder. Personally I’m a ‘front’ type of gal so when I go to other people’s houses it feels odd to see it coming from the back. I resist the urge to change it on their behalf though. Most of the time.
Next we have quality. There are some things I just don’t scrimp on. Toilet roll is one of those things. I have to have good quality – even though my daughter, who works for the local water company, tells me that it is not good for the drains as it doesn’t break down easily. (Sorry @loveyourdrain on Twitter, whose name is Dwaine Pipe and has my favourite radio ad, the words of which are ‘Only toilet paper, pee and poo go down the loo. Inspired). But who wants flimsy, feeble toilet roll (I won’t go into the reasons here).
I am old enough to remember Izal. They had it at my Secondary School. It was dreadful stuff like tracing paper impregnated with some stinky disinfectant type chemical. Even more bizarre, I often stayed with my grandmother as a little girl and she told me that they used to rip up newspaper into squares and put them on a hook in the ‘lavvy’ (which of course was across the yard outside). Now this seems a rather satisfactory use for modern day newspapers. We aren’t allowed to wrap our fish and chips up with them any more (health and safety) so using them as toilet paper seems curiously satisfying. She also told me that they would buy oranges with the paper round them and flatten and smooth this paper to use in the toilet. I have incredibly fond memories of my Grandma and sights and sounds will often take me back to the time I spent with her. She kept a paraffin lamp in the outside toilet to prevent it freezing in the winter. The smell of paraffin burning takes me back to that place. Anyway, I digress…
Now we seem to have another raging debate, perpetrated by a toilet roll manufacturer, as to whether you ‘scrunch’ or ‘fold’. I’m not revealing my preference here though bearing in mind my previous references to OCD you will be able to guess accurately.
Who would have thought that a simple roll of paper could cause such aggravation?
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