Saturday, July 12, 2008

Essential Life Lesson

Is there controversy over toilet paper in your house? Do you care if the toilet paper is put on the holder over or under? My Mom was a supervisor on the State Thruway. One day some workers showed up at her toll booth area and said they were there to put up toilet paper holders. Mom told them they had perfectly good holders already. They said they knew that but they were going to put up another set so you could have one with the paper over and one with the paper under in each stall so everyone would be happy! This was not a public bathroom but for the toll collectors only. Too bad our state hadn't seen this life lesson. The tax payers would have been saved a lot of money!

Essential Life Lesson #1: Over is Right, Under is Wrong
As part of our ongoing effort here at Current Configuration to make your life not only better, but also 10% more crunchy, weʼre offering you this first installment of what will be an ongoing series of Essential Life Lessons. Kicking off this series will be a critical but even-handed examination of a common misunderstanding that occurs in a realm of many misunderstandings: the bathroom.
Put simply, there is a right way to hang the toilet paper, and a wrong way. Read on to determine the status of your own roll.
Toilet paper has a natural curve, a way of being that lends itself to certain orientations on the toilet paper spool.* If handled with skill and knowledge, it can provide an abundance of both sanitation and comfort, quilted together in each square of pillowy ply. If handled with clumsy ignorance, or worse, carelessness, it will beset the user with pain, filth, and frustration. Donʼt let it end this way, with you curled on the tile floor of the stall, weeping in frustration, covered in wasted papier de toilette. To convince you, weʼve created some diagrams, harnessing the power of SCIENCE, to demonstrate the natural benefits of the overhanging method. First, we examine the optimal viewing benefits of the overhanging method.
Below are examples of the helpful and fruitful over-hung method on the left and the annoying and detrimental under-hung method on the right.


Notice the dramatic difference in the amount of visible toilet paper. Ironically, it is the over-hung toilet paper that has both the most visible free sheetage and the least amount of sheetage free from the roll to do it. Now, this may not seem like a big deal on its own, but in these extra sheets lies your undoing. Observe.
We here at Current Configuration, for the purposes of ease and expediency, do the one-handed tear (okay, really, itʼs just me, but bear with me, er, us). The one-handed tear is a quick maneuver that takes advantage of the perforated squares, allowing your bundle of toilet paper to be liberated with one quick swipe of the arm. This is the foundation of bathroom ease, the cottony bedrock on which enjoyment rests in the restrooms of many nations.
The one-handed tear relies on a quick and forceful motion directed either away from or towards the tear-er. The forces applied in this motion are great and, like the atom, are not to be trifled with. The natural curve of the over-hung method allows the roll to stand fast after a one-handed tear, but the under-hung method creates a calamitous tendency in the roll. This tendency can only lead to this:
Wasted paper, frustration, the destruction of our forests. While we realize that it is possible to execute a one-handed tear on an under-hung roll, this is a game of sanitary Russian roulette. You are bound to lose eventually, and there is no re-rolling an unwound toilet paper roll. The results will only cause you grief. Donʼt let this happen to you. Restroom attendants, janitors, maids, facilities crews, and responsible toiletowners take note: Donʼt use the under-hung method for your toilet paper rolls. It leads to the destruction of our precious resources and the pillars of civilization as we know it!
*Does that thing have a proper name?
I hope this has been helpful and will end the controversy in your home or place of business. I'm proud to say that I always hang it the right way!

13 comments:

Dawn said...

Toooooo funny, Jean!!!!!

Wonder how much research was needed to come to this conclusion?!

:)

Anonymous said...

LOL, Jean. This was a funny post.

Lisa Cobler said...

ROFLMBO!! That is to funny!

Unknown said...

Cute post!

Susie said...

Too funny, but I must say mine is always hung the right way. If Bill hangs it backward, I turn it around!
xo

Colleen - the AmAzINg Mrs. B said...

Oh this is just tooo funny - I have been known to change the direction of the paper at friend's homes, places of work and public restrooms all over the country! You have finally given a graphic chart I can pull out and show people that, yes, I AM right!!

Now, can you make one that'll teach the male population to actually put a roll on the thingy in the first palce??
Colleen

Anonymous said...

Thank you! I need to show this posting to my husband!

Anne Fannie said...

Wonder what the research costed! They could have just asked any of us, we would have told them the correct way!

The Smiths said...

What??? You mean sitting it on the side of the bathtub isn't correct??? I hope my husband reads this!! I always wondered why he didn't put it on the roll...maybe because he didn't know the right way...lol.

maggiegracecreates said...

this is hilarious - I'll be printing this and taping it over the rools in my bathrooms at home and at work -

this is an absolute favorite read ever.

Carole Burant said...

Whew, I'm so glad I've always hung mine up the RIGHT way! Woohoo! lol Loved this Jean! xoxo

Diana LaMarre said...

Uh, Oh, hubby is right....I hang mine the wrong way! LOL.

Lallee said...

Amen and amen! LOL