By Angry Old American, Copyright March 16th, 2020. All Rights Reserved.
CAUTION: This letter contains offensive language directed toward more than a few local knuckleheads. Angry Old American is a self-described unrepentant Hater who eschews Political Correctness. By continuing to subject your frail and sensitive eyes and mind to these materials you agree not to hunt down, torture and kill Angry Old American or sue the Publisher.
DANGER! Turn back while you still can.
This letter will address a phenomenon with global reach and cataclysmic impact… The hoarding of bottled water and toilet paper.
When the world is coming to an end, all people, everywhere, regardless of age, gender, nationality, race, creed or color have an instinctive desire to surround themselves with massive amounts of bottled water and toilet paper. It happened during the days of Pioneers traveling the prairies in Conestoga Wagons. It happened when Natives lived in Tipis and hunted buffalo. It happened during the Middle Ages in Castles with kings. It happened in every empire from Rome clear back to Babylon. It happened when our ancestors were Cave dwellers. Bottled water and toilet paper equate to security!
It is a shame that our water supply has degraded from H2O to a chemical soup. Most folks in my generation drank from a garden hose as kids without a thought. It tasted good too!
Take a moment to read the contents of many popular bottled water brands. Contents? Yup, it will have a list of contents. If it says “Natural Spring Water” then that is what you are getting. If the contents label says “PTW” then you are getting Purified Tap Water. Better to buy a quality water filter and a few large water containers. You are getting the same water from your tap that the bottlers use; perhaps a little better. Do it yourself and save money.
Toilet Paper? Certainly Angry Old American cannot fault the public for stocking up on mountains of toilet paper!
Yes, I do.
The “Modern” flush toilet came into existence in the 1870s and our sewer systems have been addicted to toilet paper ever since. At the 1883 Chicago International Exhibition, the flush toilet made its big public debut alongside the electric light-bulb. Scott was the first major supplier of rolled and perforated toilet paper. It was not until the 1920s that most rural Americans had indoor plumbing and flush toilets.
Flush any other wiping substance down your toilet drain and you “Crash the System.” Australians faced with Covid 19 panic buying and subsequent toilet paper shortages have already crashed their sewer systems in Victoria with paper towels, handiwipes, newspaper, and a long list of non-degradable butt-wiping alternatives.
Needing to call a plumber because of a backed-up toilet is never a pleasant event in the best of times. What would it be like now during a viral Pandemic? What would it be like if every toilet on your block started to back-up all at the same time, or raw sewage overflowed the streets? When people cannot get hold of toilet paper because others have cleared the shelves, they may resort to anything that resembles it.
Unfortunately, the internet is rife with sites touting everything from cotton-balls to junk-mail as suitable stand-ins for toilet paper. Perhaps these alternatives can be used for an outhouse, or a porta-potty in a survival situation. No substitutes can be flushed successfully down the toilet other than toilet paper. Yes, our forefathers were known to rip pages from the Monkey Wards catalog to wipe with. However, that was in the day when outhouses were the norm.
We cannot afford to lose our sewage disposal system in the midst of a Pandemic! If your neighbors run out of toilet paper, then give them a roll.
There are ways to conserve toilet paper. Perhaps it is already common knowledge; but I will share a bit of knowledge from another place in time.
In the Twilight Zone of the 1950s, during the Eisenhower Administration, the kids in my grade school were treated with a lecture about advanced butt-wiping. This was several decades before the community of South Park was ever built. Here’s the story:
Our School Custodian, known to us kids as “Mr. Green Jeans” because he looked like Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Bunny’s sidekick, appeared before our class one day.
“Listen up you kids. You’ve been going through a month’s ration of toilet paper each week. This toilet paper is made from trees that are important strategic resources for our nation’s efforts to combat communist agression during the Cold War. You’ve all been taught how to duck and cover. Well, if you don’t learn to wipe your butts in a proper military manner, we will lose that Cold War, your home will be nuked, your parents and pets will look like charred hotdogs on a bar-b-que grill, your toys will be taken away and given to communist kids, and you will all be shipped to the Gulag Archipelago for slave labor. Now you don’t want that to happen, do you?”
“No sir!” we all replied in unison.
“I have been carefully counting each and every sheet of toilet paper during daily inspections. The girl’s restroom is doing just dandy and they are excused for recess. The boys will stay here for instruction.”
As the girls strolled from class a few stuck their tongues out at us.
“Now boys, you will learn how to wipe your butts thoroughly, quickly and efficiently just like me and the rest of the Marines that kicked-ass on Iwo!”
“Yes sir!” We were all ears.
After giving each of us a roll of toilet paper to practice with, our instruction resumed. Mr. Green Jeans held out his left bladed hand vertical with the thumb pointing to the sky.
One of the kids murmured “Uh oh, this doesn’t look good.”
“Place the end of your roll between your thumb and index finger and pinch it tight to hold it in place.”
We all followed his example as a hush fell over the room and eyes widened because we all wanted to wipe our butts like Mr. Green Jeans, John Wayne and the rest of the Marines hunkered down in the Sands of Iwo Jima.
“Next, you wrap the toilet paper around your hand four times, then tear it along the perforated line.”
Mr. Green Jeans demonstrated the process as though explaining rifle nomenclature during the field-strip of an M1 Carbine. We all ripped our toilet paper from our rolls like we were slamming a round home into a rifle chamber.
“Remove your hand from inside the paper and you will each have a square wad of toilet paper consisting of precisely eight uniform strategically important sheets. This square of toilet paper can wipe your little Marine butts over seven times, and you won’t even get the stinky-fingers!”
Jaws dropped and gasps circulated in the room as we looked at one another in amazement. Seven times! With only eight sheets?! Without getting the stinky-fingers!!! That was almost as impressive as Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier. We all leaned forward in our chairs to learn this military secret. By gosh, we were going to win this Cold War and keep our parents and pets from looking like charred Oscar Meyer Weeners.
“Now boys, the secret to Marine butt-wiping is properly applied military tactics. This here big square can be wiped on one side four separate times; once at each corner. This is what we in the Military call the tactic of Disbursement.”
Mr. Green Jeans did not actually demonstrate this process nor simulate. There were no live cartridges in the M1 Carbine. However, we were all thoroughly impressed “Gosh,” Golly,” “Jeepers” “Gee Whiz.”
“Next comes the tactic of concealment. You fold the square in half inward toward the poop until you cannot see a single bit of the stuff, like making a PBJ sandwich with only one slice of bread. This leaves you a rectangular wad of clean paper that can be used for a minimum of two more Marine Corps wipes.”
Joey Johnson, a Howdy Doody looking carrot-topped kid who’s dad had been a Marine spoiled the ending “Then you fold it inward one more time and wipe again!”
“That’s right boy, and that is how we beat the Japanese in the Pacific and how we are going to beat the Godless Commies in the Cold War. They pushed us out of Korea, but they won’t get us here in the good ole USA.”
We all beamed with enlightenment and not one of us ever told the girls our military secret. But now, all of you in Del Norte County know the secret way of conserving your toilet paper.
Even better, you will learn how to do without toilet paper entirely! What to use when there is no toilet paper? Study what long-distance thru-hikers do when they tackle the nearby Pacific Crest Trail. One bottle of soapy water, and another bottle of clean water for a reach-around rinse is the most common solution. This portable make-shift bidet can get you through a tough spot.
Some might even keep a personal washcloth soaking in a sealed container with a strong mix of chlorine bleach and water. The washcloth is thoroughly cleaned in a washbasin after each use and the contaminated water flushed. The washcloth is then tossed back into the chlorine solution and sealed tight for use in the future.
A fresh bottle of uncontaminated chlorine solution can be used to clean the hands. You might even have a thick pair of rubber gloves handy to limit contact with fecal material altogether.
So, there you go Del Norte County, there is no longer a need to clear the shelves of bottled water, and no longer a need to hoard toilet paper.
You now know what you can flush, and what cannot be flushed. You learned how to conserve toilet paper through the military tactics of disbursement and concealment. As an added bonus you even learned to do without toilet paper altogether. That knowledge alone is more valuable than a Cracker Jack Secret Decoder Ring.
Happy water-drinking and butt-wiping. This basic and valuable knowledge is a must for every person to know. Share this new found knowledge with your parents, spouse, kids, business associates, friends, employer, strangers on the street, your bank teller, the clerk at the store, restaurant server, people that couldn’t be bothered, that old lady down the street that already thought you were weird, a cop when he gives you a ticket, and the judge when he fines you. They will all be thoroughly amazed and you will become the talk of the town. “Hey, see that guy over there… He can tell you everything you ever wanted to know about bottled water and butt wiping.” You will become a legend.
Whatever you do, don’t crash the sewer system!
May God Bless the Republic, what is left of it.
Respectfully,
Angry Old American
