Miss Mom: The Great TP War

I recently pasted a small note to my bathroom door barring anyone from using it but myself. Why did I take such drastic measures? It was for a simple reason: I was tired of the ongoing toilet paper wars that has been waging in my house for years. One would think that once we had two bathrooms to share that this battle would come to an end and a truce would ensue, but no such luck.

The reason for these battles of epic proportions is because my children will use the last scrap of toilet paper in the bathroom, and not replace the roll. Now that we have a two-bathroom house, instead of getting a new roll, they just go to my bathroom and use all my toilet paper as well. When I get my turn, I get a rather unpleasant surprise when I can’t find the expected Charmin at my side, and I realize that there is no toilet paper within reaching distance in either bathroom.

I know that the latest stage of this ongoing saga has commenced when I hear someone hollering from behind closed doors, or even more nefarious, I get a text from one of them, demanding little squares of tissue. When I ask one of the siblings, any of which is totally guilty of being the one to use the last of the paper, to send in reinforcements in the form of paper relief, they immediately go on the defensive, declaring “I wasn’t the one to use the last of the toilet paper so why should I have to replace it?” Meanwhile the one in need is yelling for assistance all the louder, while filling my phone with “I need toilet paper” texts.

I try to stock both bathrooms with at least three rolls on hand. I just haven’t figured out how two girls can go through all that stuff in such a short amount of time. In their defense, weak as it is, they do have constantly in-attendance boyfriends who also use my bathrooms, but boys are much more conservative in their toilet paper use than girls. I suspect that my daughters are selling toilet paper on the black market, but I have yet to procure proof.

You would think siblings would be more willing to help each other out in small areas such as that, but then I remember how far my sibs and I went to help each other out sometimes. Why we were quite capable of falling over backwards to get out of actually helping each other. Why do I think my kids are any more benevolent then I was at that age? What was I thinking?

Of course banning people from my bathroom only works for a short time, or at least until they run out of toilet paper again. I wonder if they make coin-slotted toilet paper dispensers? If I could charge per square, would it end the TP war? Would a truce be declared? Would I make enough to actually pay to replace the stuff? I guess I’ll never know.

Sylvie Galloway is a Spartanburg-based writer and blogger. You can read more of her work at Sylvie is a blogger.