It's Raining Kotex

I thought that at age 59 I’d be pretty much over this but I guess not. You see, three weeks ago my 21 year old step-daughter moved in with us. That’s no big deal. She works full-time and goes to college part-time. We’ve got a smallish 2 bedroom apartment and Carolyn has always kept her bedroom made up and she’s always spent at least one night a week here—usually on a night when she knows that I’m home and will be cooking.

But anyway, some things change just a bit when you’ve got another female in the house. Especially in the bathroom. Here’s an example:


Now, please notice that there are 11 bottles of “stuff” sitting on the tub plus a razor, puffy thing, jar of stuff, brush and 2 bars of soap—a white one and a green one. The green bar of Irish Spring is the only thing of mine in the whole damn tub! I use that to shower. I use it to wash my hair and, yep to clean my “rungi schmelli”.

That’s OK. It’s the price of being the only male in a 3 person household.

But, one thing I noticed the other day is that the already copious consumption of toilet paper has increased exponentially (even though Meg is gone most of the time). I mean, geesh, we bought a package of a dozen rolls 2 weeks ago and another dozen pack last week because it was on special. Now, that would have been enough to last me maybe a month or more.

But I had to break out a new roll the other day right in the middle of taking care of my “business” and it was the last roll in the vanity. So when I got done in the bathroom—making sure to put the new roll on in just exactly the position of paper over the top that my wife insists on rather than the more manly under the bottom—I first made a stop in the hallway linen closet to grab a few more rolls (no man wants to endure the ire of a spouse who has run out of toilet paper with no replacement rolls readily available—i.e. able to be grabbed without having to rise from the “throne”).

So, I made a “pit stop” at the linen closet. And 2 things happened. The first was that immediately upon opening the door, a package of Kotex high up in the closet shifted and rained about a dozen of the plastic wrapped packs of sanitary napkins on my head. Upon looking, I noticed that these were a different brand than that usually purchased by Carolyn at Costco. No, her’s were pushed on a different shelf.

The second thing I noticed was that what was 2 dozen rolls of toilet paper 2 weeks ago was now down to about a half dozen rolls. Geez, are these 2 going out tee-peeing while I’m at work or something?

So I loaded a few rolls in my hands and stacked them in the bottom of the vanity for the next time I have to go in and do a little “reading”. And then I picked up the dozen or so Kotex which had rained on my head when I opened the linen closet the first time.

I think we’ll get by, but it reminded me of the famous quote from Robert Frost in “The Death of the Hired Man”: “Home is that place where when you have to go there, they have to take you in...”

…Just as long as no one finds my stash of Irish Spring.

The Great American Wipe-Out

There are special days for just about anything and everything in the U.S. We just “celebrated” Earth Day, that special day each spring when we tout the virtues of the environment, everyone goes around looking like it’s St. Patrick’s Day again and then we go merrily on our way the next day spewing pollution and automotive emissions again.

And of course, there’s the “Great American Smoke-Out” in November where we’re all supposed to quit smoking for the day in the hopeful expectation that many of us cigarette puffing sinners giving up the habit (somebody look up the addictive properties of nicotine please) permanently.

So, now I’m going to propose another special day. Just once a year in the hopeful expectation that we can change our habits and protect the environment probably more than all the Earth Days and Great American Smoke-Outs combined.

I’m calling it the Great American Wipe-Out and it has absolutely nothing to do with falling off a surf board. In recent newspaper articles the Natural Resources Defense Council has been critical of the American preference for “ultra-soft or quilted toilet paper”. According to them, in “less-picky” Europe and Latin America, 40% of toilet paper I produced by recycling but Americans demand multi-ply tissue which requires “virgin wood” for 98% of the product.

Now, I don’t know about you but I like soft toilet paper. The but in this equation is how much I like soft, cushy toilet paper within the context that it’s not made of recycled material like old newspaper or bond paper or whatever could be used.

Perhaps I have a bit more of a unique perspective in that I lived in Europe for a while and got used to Italian toilets which either provided on paper at all or perhaps provided a newspaper or if it had toilet paper it was the consistency, absorbency and softness of crepe paper. Additionally, I spent many a summer vacation at my grandparents’ farm in the hills of Kentucky using a privy (that’s fancy talk for an outhouse) and have literally used Sears or Wards catalogue pages to wipe. My brother and I would get so “plugged up” trying to avoid the privy that the morning we were to leave the farm Mom would insist on dosing both of us liberally with Ex-Lax to get things moving, so to speak.

The idea of using 98% “virgin wood” to manufacture soft, fanny-caressing toilet paper is just a bit repugnant to me. But not repugnant enough to get me to quit using it. Now, I have gotten myself to the point where I’m pretty careful about how much I use. I’m a folder rather than a scruncher and I can get by with 3 sheets per wipe as long as I’m pretty gentle about it. And it all depends on how things went down there as to how many wipes.

But a couple of ideas come to mind. How about if we printed paperback novels and popular magazines like “People” or “Time” or “Entertainment” on a paper that could do “double-duty”? This could actually encourage more bathroom reading and maybe even make our kids just a bit more literate. Southern California is now under mandatory water reduction and rationing so bidets don’t present a very viable alternative.

This is really a crappy issue. That’s why I’m proposing an annual “Great American Wipe-Out Day”, perhaps right in the middle of sweet corn season, where we use alternative sources of toilet paper and which will highlight and promote the need for greater conservation of our scarce resources. Otherwise, at some point in the not too distant future, it’s really going to hit the fan.