Day 14 Cheap Toilet Paper

I hate cheap toilet paper. Whoever wastes their time making this product should be water boarded to find out why they even bother. When it comes down to it, if you're out of your own home you are at the mercy of other people. Take a look around you right now... go ahead, and do it. How many people do you see that you want to put the health and welfare of your ass (or other things) in the hands of those people? Exactly... none.

Have you ever been on a road trip and you stop to eat at a roadside cafe or truck stop? You know better, but you decide to eat the buffet for one reason or another. Maybe its the biscuits and gravy, I don't know. You sit down and wolf this horrible tasting crap down as fast as you can and wash it down with the world's worst coffee and you know there will be an issue sometime in the near future. You pay your tab and off you go. About 45 minutes into this leg of the trip, the URGE hits you. This isn't the urge where you think you might be able to go... this is the URGE that if you don't stop soon you're going to have to ditch your car and find another by any means possible. It's urgent!


You fly off the interstate and slam on the brakes at the nearest "rest area". (There ain't no resting there. You know whats going to happen.) You do the butt pinch shuffle into the "Palace of Doom" praying for an open stall. You also consider other options like the urinal or trash can and weigh the risks of being caught in that precarious situation, but alas! One is open, and you barely make it. Right when you sit down you hope the seat is cold. (Reference an earlier post.) Then, out of nowhere you remember you hate cheap toilet paper and you know damned well there is no "Double Quilted Northern" or "Charmin" and you sneak a peek out of the corner of your eye. At best you are hoping for the single ply 60 grit sand paper only because rest areas seldom have anything even close to that user friendly. The quick glance doesn't do the trick so you take a more deliberate look to prepare yourself for what is going to happen. It's like an impromptu disaster plan, and then your worst dreams become reality. it's the worst of the worst. Its the dreaded "single ply with extra tree bark added".


You don't want to go now and you try to talk yourself out of it. The truck stop gravy says "no dice, sucker" and an explosion similar to Hiroshima occurs. You begin to cry a little, but you are keeping it at a low whimper. Your body is already reacting to the required next act of using "extra bark added"...... You come to terms with the fact that it is using that or your only remaining sock (since you used the other one yesterday in a similar situation). You cannot believe that you are going to do this to yourself but you've exhausted all options. It happens. You're butt is now a level 3 trauma incident. You've got splinters and pine sap all over your ass and hands. You being to cry again, once you catch your breath. You man up, pull your britches up and flush.


You make your way to the sink and make eye contact with the next urgent bastard. He knows what you've been through. He can see it in your face. You're shaking like a dog pooping a peach pit and he beings to cry. You try to forget the man's face as you walk out of the rest room. The fear, horror you saw on that person's face and the anguish he saw in yours is somehow etched into everyone in the rest areas memory. You do manage to walk back to the truck with a bit more ease. You've come to terms with what just happened. You look at the truck to see the welcoming faces of your wife and kids, urging you to fight on. Step by step you are trying to prove you are the man they all thought you were as you wipe the last tear from your eye. As you grab the truck door handle, you wife nods with approval and an encouraging smile. Your kids cry "daddy is going to be okay"! And it is then, and only then, that you know you will be okay.


Before the truck door is open you hear the all-telling scream from the "Palace of doom" and you know another man has just gone through what you've been through. You shake your head hoping he'll be okay. You know this is a battle he has to endure on his own and you hope he has a support group in his Subaru as strong as yours. You open the door and sit down as gingerly as possible while wiping a bead of sweat from your brow. Your wife gently grabs your hand and says, "You're going to be all right." You fire up the truck and tell the family that everything is going to be all right and you remind them to remind you to stay away from the truck stop buffet, especially if you didn't bring along emergency rations of top dollar toilet paper.


I hate cheap toilet paper, and I know you do too.