Here’s an article on some guy’s web page which decries the great variety available in his supermarket’s toilet tissue aisle. Read it if you’re just surfing around, I didn’t find it as clever or amusing as I believe the author may have but hey, whatever.
It got me to thinking, though, as my mind wandered and as discussions of toilet paper often do, about the real, true difference between Man and Woman. Sorry, I’m simply not qualified to enter into discussions of other genders. In fact I never quite mastered the basic two.
Of the many things that perplex me about women to this day, there is one item for which I have never even managed a snarky hypothesis: What the hell do they do with all that toilet paper? I had a wife whose TP consumption had me speculating about black holes and deals with devils. She was always secretive on the matter and simply referred me to ‘the book,’ which was a theoretical tome men were not really supposed to know about and were forever forbidden to read. For the longest time I thought it was just her, but I have gradually come to realize that every married man I know has the same problem. I shouldn’t make sweeping statements based on such a small data set, but it does appear to be true: Long-term TP storage is simply impossible in any house that also contains a woman.
In the year 2009 I made a Costco run and filled much of a friend’s large pickup with many bulky commodities including two large packages of toilet paper rolls. All of it has long since been consumed except some pinto beans (I stocked far too many pinto beans, in hindsight) and the toilet paper. The second package has not yet been breached and won’t be this year, barring a water leak in the powershed. But I’m a guy. If I were a woman, I am confident that I’d have been looking for new sources of toilet paper by the winter solstice of that very year – at the latest.
Ah, the mystery that is Woman. 🙂
Some women use toilet paper instead of facial tissue when they put on or off makeup. I never wore makeup of any kind, but I’ve seen many women do that. Some may find it handy for blowing their nose. My mother used to carry a roll of TP around when she had a cold.
The major reason for the difference between men and women in TP use, however, is something very basic due to their different anatomy. Men don’t need to use any paper (at least my husband didn’t) after urination. Women really do. 🙂
” Men don’t need to use any paper ” Depends on bad his aim is…
“She was always secretive on the matter and simply referred me to ‘the book,’ which was a theoretical tome men were not really supposed to know about and were forever forbidden to read.”
And until you broke the story today, that secrecy campaign was 100% successful, at least where I’m concerned. Is that book available on WikiLeaks? It might hold the answer to many ageless questions of the universe.
When my two grandaughters aged 4 and 6 were living with us our TP consumption skyrocketed. As near as I can figure out the little darlings simply preferred to put as much toilet paper as possible between them and the pee they were wiping off. where two squares would have been adequate 20 squares removed them physically from any risk of pee actually touching their little fingers. My wife would tell them to use less which I think worked reducing their use to 10 squares instead of 20.
“Is that book available on WikiLeaks?”
It’s pretty much like the Necronomicon: You really don’t want to open it. You find answers, but they’ll drive you mad.
Come to think of it, it may bethe Necronomicon.
My wife used to complain about me using too much toilet paper. I thought I was alone until Andy went public…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGCIGEUB32M
No, Bear, WOMEN are the Necronomicon. Howie’s fabled Arab was mad because he had a harem.
I have a mother, four sisters, eight nieces(one of whom I raised), three wives and mercifully I have lost track of how many girlfriends………all of these whom have lived with me at one time or another…….and the riddle of the roll is still unbroken and secure.
I think they eat it.
They refuse to discuss it; steadfastly, like a strict code of the vagina.
I know the makeup thing isn’t it…….my wife, her documented predecessors and most of the girlfriends didn’t wear make up, I just don’t date or ultimately marry women who smear on the spackle.
I have a sister who packs on the mud, so does dear old mom…….they use really expensive pads that I think are moistened with the tears of baby Harp seals (Harvested by Nubian teenage stripper virgins[How rare is that?] just moments before the clubbing) or some such. Mere tp would bruise the delicate wrinkles……
As for the wiping after peeing, we are in Philippines right now. There is a hose with a dishwasher nozzle hooked up inline with the toilet tank supply line for the purpose of blasting both regional emissions clean.
A towel is used for drying after. (Works quite well. My wife’s nethers are fresh as a daisy)
Yet still she uses a full roll of toilet paper about every other day. I can go quite a stretch on one (especially with the pressure washer)
I just fail to understand.
Like with most things regarding women, I gave up trying to understand lest I end up like Lovecraft’s Arab.
This was a favorite topic of Acidman. Remembering Acidman makes me feel very old, in internet years.
Thanks for the reminder. I just tallied the pantry and came up just shy of 200 rolls (Charmin Ultra Soft, if you please). Not nearly enough for the season.
Two things to say on this.
1. I’ve been an active backpacker for decades. That said one roll of TP will easily last me 2-3 years in the backpack. Figure 2 weeks in the woods, a few uses a trip, and that’s all the action that roll sees. A few years ago I brought my (then 8 year old) oldest daughter along for a trip. A three day trip, and she ran through a full roll of TP. No joke, in three days, she used the amount of TP in the woods that I would use in three YEARS
2. Decades ago, back when I was in college a single friend helped me and my girlfriend at the time move. As we were packing up the bathroom, everything I had in there from toothpaste to shampoo could easily fit in to one small shoe box, with a fair amount of space to spare. Six or seven large printer paper boxes of stuff later, the friend made the classic comment “Dear god, your woman is at LEAST as difficult to maintain as a classic British racing car!” After a moment of reflection on this revelation he followed up with “Huh, I bet she leaks even more fluids too” Under his breath.
truer words… truer words…
Oh fergawdsake, guys…Think about it.
You take a dump — what, once a day? Maybe twice? OK, ladies do the same. You and we both use TP afterward.
You take a leak — what, five or six times in 24 hours? More? OK…ladies do the same. WE use TP afterward. You don’t need to, presumably.
Ergo…isn’t it reasonable to calculate that a woman will use somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 to 7 TIMES as much TP every 24 hours as a guy does? If she wants to be clean for herself (and her guy, if any), that is.
Guys are supposed to be so logical and good at math. Why is this issue the exception?
(I won’t get into the trunks-full-of-cosmetics question…that’s a completely separate issue and not my style. Body butter, etc. is a luxury…TP is not!)
I remember discovering (embarrassingly late) that womenfolk use TP after urinating, but I never realized that they used as much for the one as they do for the other. Just how messy *is* the process for women?
On second though, I think I’d prefer to retain my ignorance…
Oh. Well, first of all, maybe they or you or I don’t use all *that* much for #2, either.
But that said…I wouldn’t call it a question of messiness. I’d call it a question of surface area involved.
And even that is way too much info, I know. ‘Nuff said!