Kathleen McCall:
Occasional�� Muse�

2001-07-30 - 2:31 p.m.

Still Kid-Free

I'm putting "good toilet paper" on the list of things to buy while the kids are gone.

I'm a bad, bad mamma. What kind of mamma would buy herself the two ply-soft stuff, all quilted and puffy, and force her children to use the bleached newsprint brand? Me. I do that.

Well, Jesus. You can't believe how those children go through toilet paper. They grab one end of the roll and yank repeatedly, wadding it up in the other hand until they have something that looks like a giant dustmop. Forty feet of toilet paper. And it doesn't matter whether it's the good stuff or the emery paper, they do the same thing. I can't afford their habit.

I'm not the tight ass three-squares person. I don't have unreasonable expectations. I just want them to think about the little baby trees shrieking in agony as the chainsaws rip through them, the burnt and slashed acreage they cause each time they sit down in the bathroom. That's all.

They don't care.

It's weird, man. If I want them to use napkins I not only have to hand out the napkins, I have to remind them every few minutes that a napkin is a functional item, not a floor decoration. I actually keep a roll of paper towels in the kitchen for emergencies, yet they will trot right by it and grab the dishtowel to mop up milk. I keep Kleenex, but I won't describe the sorts of things they're willing to get up to without one. But toilet paper? ParTYYY!

Families of three should NOT, in my opinion, have to bring toilet paper into the house with a pallet jack.

So I end up with the #10 Graphite stuff in my bathroom, too. I hate that stuff. But that's what we have, and we have a pallet full of it. However, since the kids aren't here this week, I'm getting something different. Something with little chubby baby angels with kewpie curls and quilted wings carrying bouquets of dandelion puffs. Six-ply; do they make six-ply? I'm getting it.

One last thought for today: there may be nothing else in the world right now that would have given me as much joy as I just felt, tossing all those shoebox dioramas into the dumpster.

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