T.P.

When I got online this morning, there was an item on my home page about toilet paper. To be more precise, it was a link to free e-cards for August 26, Toilet Paper Day. I smiled and proceeded to send the card to several friends. If you are one of my friends and did not receive it, I'm sorry, I was just throwing a few names on there to get it into circulation. The link above will take you there.

Anyway, I didn't even know there was such a thing as Toilet Paper Day. I shouldn't be surprised. There is a day for everything else in America. Why not T.P.? It got me to thinking about that wonderful cleansing tool that most of us take for granted, until we have to waddle around looking for it with our pants around our ankles, because we forgot to check for it before we sat down. You know you've been there. We all have.

An article I found about toilet paper, reminded me of the constant struggle, that was placing the TP on the dispenser in my marital bathroom. You see, my ex-wife was very anal about things (hehe. toilet paper. anal. sorry.). She had to have the roll set so that the toilet paper came up over the top and rolled toward her. I, on the other hand, didn't care if the toilet paper was even hung. And, being a man, I knew that she would want it hung, but I would always forget which way she wanted it. I hung it, inevitably wrong most times. Then, she would get pissed. I thought I was doing a good deed by hanging it, she thought I was hanging it "wrong" on purpose just to raise her ire. After about the first year of living together, she managed to realize that I was not doing it on purpose, and stopped getting angry when I would hang the TP backward. And, I got so used to hanging it so that it would roll over the top toward her, that to this day, I rarely hang it the other way, unless I am just not paying attention. I've been divorced for close to four years.

Now, on to some random toilet paper facts. Did you know that the first commercially available toilet paper was manufactured by a man named Joseph Gayetty in 1857, in New Jersey? Or that the Scott Paper Company (Scott paper towels, TP, etc.) was started by selling some form of toilet paper from a push cart in lovely Philadelphia? Coincidentally, they did not market their toilet paper under the family name Scott when they started selling it, "not wanting to, ah, soil the family’s good name." Can anyone guess when two-ply was introduced to the marketplace? 1942, by the St. Andrew’s Paper Mill in England. Who knew that if Americans used rolls made from recycled paper 424,000 trees would be spared by replacing a 500-sheet roll of virgin fiber toilet paper? That would save a whole lot of Canadian forest, which is where most of our paper products come from. Here's a couple more random facts for you. In China AD 1391 the Bureau of Imperial Supplies began producing 720,000 sheets of toilet paper a year, each sheet measuring two feet by three feet, for use by the Emperors. The average American uses 57 sheets of toilet paper per day.

The funny thing about all these facts, I couldn't find any mention as to why we celebrate toilet paper on August 26th every year, the first year it was recognized, or who pushed for it. Happy Toilet Paper Day everyone!!!!!