A TREATISE ON TP

Is It Just Me, or do we get more full of it as we get older? 

Case in point: TP. Or more specifically, how much of it we use now that it's just the two of us. I do realize we've gained some weight over the years, which most likely means we're exercising less and eating more. And it's perfectly natural that a good bit of what goes in must come out - so logic tells me it will be in larger quantities. 

Still, I remember when our bathrooms got plenty of use from two healthy adults and two growing (and always hungry) kids. Back then, I'm sure that the amount we spent on toilet paper was barely a blip on our overall grocery spending radar. Fast forward to now, though, when it's all systems go and our TP budget is threatening to wipe out my already meager Social Security earnings.

Actually, thinking about that tissue issue brought to mind related concerns, so now I'm on a roll. For starters, how is the word "tissue" correctly pronounced? I recall a mention of how a proper lady should speak it in a book I read a very long time ago - I've forgotten which one it was, but was something akin to Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights. Is it "teesh-shoo," or "tiss-you?" was the weighty question. Alas, I don't remember which was deemed socially correct, but then I've never been diagnosed as anything close to a proper lady (heck, if I were, would I be discussing this in public)? So I figure it doesn't make much difference one way or the other. If it matters to you, though, I'm in the teesh-shoo camp; blame it on my hillbilly roots).

What about over or under? When a reader poses that question to household hint guru Heloise every once in a while, the topic goes viral; the roll absolutely must be hung so the sheets are pulled from underneath the back, one contingent argues. A pox on your house if your sheets don't fall on the outside of the roll, the other counters.

This is such a hot-button topic, in fact, that I'm surprised it hasn't become a plank in political platforms. Think about it: The conservatives could insist that directionality is ordained by God, and the liberals might profess that overages should be eliminated. Middle-of-the-roaders, meantime, might conclude that regulating what happens in the privacy of our homes is just too over the top.

Since I've been on both sides of this one, I'll share my strategy for letting it all hang out. My late mother, bless her heart, was in the "under" camp; all my growing up life (well, at least after my handyman dad installed indoor plumbing and eliminated the need for corncobs and Sears catalogs), I reached behind the TP roll to satisfy my need. But once I got married and had bathrooms of my own, I turned my sheets to the other wind. For reasons that shall always be unknown to me (although a shrink likely would point out that daughterly rebellion isn't a far-fetched notion), I hung mine with the tail draped over the outside.

Still other perplexities hang heavy on my mind: Is it more economical to buy one-ply or two? One-ply rolls are cheaper, but it takes considerably more to get the job done. Quilted or plain? Despite the fact that quilted is more expensive (or maybe because of it), advertisers would have us believe the fake stitching will keep us feeling "fresh." But truth is, I haven't seen enough benefits to justify paying extra just to see cute little squiggles staring back at me during my daily constitutional.

None of this, of course, really answers the question of why we're using twice the amount we did in the good old days. And now that I really think about it, the cause of the whole thing isn't what's got me down in the dumps -- it's that I hate eating tuna casserole a couple of extra times a month so our shekels will stretch far enough to pay for something as mundane as TP. Somehow, that just doesn't seem like a fair trade-off.

So I'll head straight to the bottom line and go with the notion I started with -- that we get more full of it as we age.

Or Is It Just Me?