Jill Pertler

Turning the world upside down – one two-ply at a time

There are some things in life that you just take for granted – no question asked.

The beauty of a sunset. Syrup on pancakes. Turkey on Thanksgiving. Taco Tuesday. The yummy factor of pizza leftovers.

Tighty righty, lefty loosey. The debate about the top sheet is real. Chocolate should be its own food group. If you read it on Facebook, it must be true. The five-second rule.

Dogs love us unconditionally, cats haven’t officially committed one way or another. Hitting your funny bone is no laughing matter. The first person to yell “shotgun” gets to ride in the front passenger seat. Dogs and open car windows are a match made in heaven. Frittata and quiche are just fancy terms for baked eggs.

Cilantro – you either love it or hate it. It’s an age-old debate as to which is more pleasant: puppy breath or kitty purrs. Chicken noodle soup really does make you feel better when you have a cold. When you drive through a tunnel, it’s important to hold your breath. Sneezing 10 times in a row leads to death.

Moms will always worry – about everything. It’s documented fact that a sandwich tastes better with the crust cut off. When in grade school, 92.37 percent of us called our teacher “mom” at one point or another. We’ve all Googled ourselves. The probability of running into someone you know at the store is proportionally related to whether you’ve showered or not that day.

The efficacy of toilet paper.

Or maybe not – on that last one.

I never gave the need for toilet paper a second thought. Of course, we all need toilet paper! To question this truth would be illogical, preposterous, and absurdly defiant.

If you value cleanliness, you value TP. It’s your butt’s best friend. It would be impossible to replace toilet paper. The days of using the Sears Catalog are long gone.

Yes, and no. The Sears Catalog won’t be making a comeback to American bathrooms anytime soon (I hope), but there may be a more cost-effective way to keep our bums clean – and it involves a product that’s probably already in your bathroom.

I’ll back up a bit.

I’ve been watching the price of toilet paper and the speed with which a roll goes from “mega” to empty. I probably have too much time to think about matters like this, but after my own laboratory research, I found that a mega roll lasts about four days – in a bathroom that is used only by me.

I’ve always kept a box of tissues in my bathroom. Sometimes, when I’ve run out of TP (and didn’t notice until it was too late), I have to resort to using tissues. I always thought this was a waste of a good nose wipe, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Turns out I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Let’s do the math: A mega roll of toilet paper contains approximately 4,000 square inches of two-ply and costs somewhere around $1.20 (at my superstore). In comparison, a large box of tissues contains about 12,000 square inches and sells for slightly more than the TP – about $1.25, in my experience. If a toilet paper roll lasts me 4 days, the tissue box should go 12 days. The cost for a year’s use of toilet paper comes to around $107 per year; the cost for tissues rolls in at around $38 for that same year.

All this time, I’ve been blindly using toilet paper, and a more cost-effective option was literally sitting right behind me (on the toilet tank). Talk about flushing money down the toilet.

Makes me wonder what other universal truths are actually universal fibs? Do dogs love us unconditionally, or do they have ulterior motives? Is it possible to eat tacos on a Wednesday? What if everything on Facebook isn’t true?

Oh boy. That’s one to think about.

Jill Pertler is an award-winning syndicated columnist, published playwright, and author. Don’t miss a slice; follow the Slices of Life page on Facebook.