Thoughts on toilet paper

I ran to the store to pick-up toilet paper recently. You would think this would be a simple task until faced with at least thirty choices for toilet paper: quilted, fluffy, extra strength, double ply, extra soft. I mean toilet paper? I spent almost a half an hour weighing my choices. (for toilet paper!?!) What is the difference between quilted and soft? Would I get a rash if I used one over the other? Should I get one with butterflies or seashells?

I do not need so many choices, it only complicates what otherwise could be such a simple decision. And who are these people who decide to market toilet paper? Do they sit around tables discussing the benefits to extra quilting? Do they do scientific studies and do they have photos?(eew) I find life’s decisions to be challenging enough as they are let alone having to face an entire aisle at a jumbo supermarket dedicated to products used to wipe waste from my behind.

What did people do fifty years ago when I am sure they did not have so many choices for such mundane things? Did my great grandmother sit around day after day and complain that her rear end hurt and that she wished they would invent something softer to wipe her derrier? Who decided it was time to graduate to a hundred million options? And when did it happen?

If the options are there to empower me and give me freedom I don’t find it empowering, I just find it annoying. If anything it is usually when I have forgotten to eat lunch and am on the verge of low-blood sugar hysteria, that I find myself faced with what was deceptively supposed to be a quick and easy decision. Easy?

Instead, I am almost in tears because the one thing I don’t want to have to think about with all of the other complications that occur in today's modern world and on a very empty stomach is toilet paper.

But the second I go to close my eyes and reach for the nearest roll on the wall, something small inside nags at me, what if extra quilted, fluffy, four ply, two hundred extra sheets, really is better? Is it worth two dollars more better? What if the cheaper stuff chaffes my behind and I have to walk around precise and stiff wincing if I shuffle my legs the wrong way and people keep asking me about my biking accident?

I get angry at the home paper product companies. Don't they have anything better to do with their time? Don't they know there are people starving? People dying? People hoping just to make it through a blistering hot day without getting blown to pieces? Wait a second, don't I?

I finally compromise and buy one of the middle to better options--of course a thousand rolls more than I will ever need, but it saves me some money, I can get the extra quilted soft kind and at least lay my fears (although never my outrage) to rest.

I can’t wait until it is time for me to buy Kleenex or better yet, paper towel. And I don't even want to think about the tougher choices--You know--Such as toothpaste...