Friday, August 18, 2006

Along with knowing not to barge into mommy's room first thing in the morning without knocking, one learns odd little quirks and habits when living in a single parent home growing up. Like shopping. Due the lack of a second income, we shopped Ghetto.

Generic brand ketchup, not Heinz. Peat moss size bags of Rice Puffs off the bottom shelf at the store, not the brand name Rice Crispy goodness (with prizes!). Koolaid, not Real Fruit Juice (now with 7 essential vitamins!)

You live what you learn and as an adult I have adopted many of these shopping habits. Although my husband now insists upon many brand name items as the generic just won't do, I buy cheap toilet paper. Volumous packages of double-roll, tissue-thin, one-ply, store brand shit tickets. They're always on sale and always come in packages so big they don't fit into the regular grocery cart. You have to store them on the metal rack at the bottom of your cart and steer carefully thereafter so as not to knock over any displays with the foot and a half of bulky mass jutting out in front and to the side.

While employing this economical TP for the use it was intended, you have to use abundant wads to avoid the touching of the hands to Other Parts. Volume over substance, you know. This isn't a problem, even when your...business... is a multi-wiper because as soon as the used paper hits the water it melts into just about nothing and flushes down the hole with ease.

Well, last week some of The Good Paper was drastically on sale - and I had a coupon. It was kismet.

I brought it home, unwrapped the tidy little package, and set a pillowy roll on the spool right away. Obviously far too excited about stupid toilet paper. All I could do then was wait for the call of nature.

The call came, I did my business and, as 32 years of conditioning taught me, grabbed myself a good, sturdy mitt full of TP. It was like wiping my bum with a soft, fluffy kitten. I didn't know that such a heavenly bathroom experience even existed!

After my moment of nirvana, I dropped the used paper into the bowl and flushed. No big deal, right? The paper- Wouldn't. Go. Down. Apparently, instead of melting down to nothingness like The Ghetto Paper, The Good Paper actually puffs up and expands when it hits the water. I waited for the bowl to fill up with water again and gave it a another try. I pulled the trigger for a second run at the flush hole but the downy lump would not budge. It was like I was actually trying to flush a soft, fluffy kitten down the shitter!

Without getting into too many graphic and unnecessary details, lets just say that the plunger has been employed more than once in the past week and, needless to say, I won't be buying that kind of toilet paper again. We're just a Ghetto Paper kind of people. Sometimes a leopard just can't change it's spots.


Get awesome blog templates like this one from BlogSkins.com