106 thoughts on “t.p. again”

  2. The true monsters are the ones who leave an empty roll without a replacement sitting on top.

    2. With only those two or three frustrating little squares glued to the cardboard…

    3. Or those that take the final roll from the storage place in the bathroom and don’t re-supply or alert other users of the empty state.

      (Do they know nothing of kanban? 🙂 )

      2. [Puts pen in pocket]
        This is an all-too-frequent occurrence. That and the vacuum system going down because someone dropped a toothpick into one of the 25 or so public toilets and 90+ cabin toilets on board. It’s a rare week without any decks losing vacuum, and common to lose several decks in one day. But it’s cheaper than getting a proper macerator system.

        1. So if you’re in a hurry you get lots of exercise running up and down stairs looking for a useable toilet!

          1. Walk, don’t run. This is work, not home – running is for the Prepare To Abandon alarm without accompanying “This is a drill” announcements.
            And you walk downstairs, buttocks clenched. Take the lift up, if you get to the bottom deck without relief, or go to don your outdoors PPE (the locker room is on the bottom accommodation deck), and try the toilet out on the aft deck.
            You work these things out once, and remember them for each installation. And given the effects of anti-malarial drugs on my guts, I work these things out in advance.

      3. LoL that’s hilarious. Someone should sell those (if they aren’t doing so already).

    5. …and if I change your toilet paper, I’m damn well putting it on correctly in the under orientation.

      2. I grew up in a house without central heating. In winter, the bathroom walls were invariably covered with condensation. Just as invariably, the first few sheets on a roll mounted your preferred way ended up stuck to the wall and unusably damp. I have used the correct 🙂 way ever since.

        1. Ah, but hanging it Diana’s way makes the roll (mostly) cat-proof. Hanging it your way makes it easy for the cat to sit there and unroll the whole damn thing. That is why Diana’s way is the correct way. 🙂

          1. In my life I have been on the staff of eleven cats, and not one of them has unrolled a toilet roll.

          2. Likewise, although including my mother’s cats puts me way over a dozen of them that didn’t.

  3. I am frequently of the monster category in our downstairs bathroom, but only because it needs changing about every two days and why bother?

    1. I don;t mind #3 actually. Often easier to get the paper off. But never in a visitor-facing bathroom! In that case, #1 (yes), always.

      1. I’m in the monster category too…mostly because I’m a lefty, my wife is a righty and each of our two bathrooms have the dispenser on opposite sides; so #3 is the compromise.

  6. The TP question has led to one of the most amazing things I’ve seen. About a decade ago, I took an online survey about bathroom habits that included the question of how I preferred the roll oriented. At the end, it displayed the survey results so far. I was astonished. Over 400,000 respondents were in unanimous agreement. I was sure that on any survey that large, somebody would disagree!

          3. Why? I’ve got a Latin dictionary in my brain. I just need to populate it by learning Latin.

          4. I’m pretty sure your subconscious actually meant “ass populum” – given the topic and all…

          1. It probably allowed the site hosting the survey to present you with lots of bathroom-related adverts.

  7. Living alone means always knowing the toilet roll status so that one can be acquired before bathroom entry if necessary.

  8. How about “None of the Above”.

    In a household with young cats, TP is always behind a closed door, lest it get spread all over the f*ing house. L

    1. No it doesn’t. You can’t tell which way it’s supposed to be hung on that picture.

      1. Yes you can. Look at the ornamentation on the toilet paper roll holder. In the first picture you’re plainly looking into the wall, with the toilet paper hanging on the proximal side of the roll’s axis.
        It is either that, or the illustrator/ designer was irrational and was drawing the product from the wall’s point of view, complete with decoration of the knuckles of the holder facing the wall (for the delectation of the plaster and paint). But since that interpretation is clearly irrational, it can be discounted.
        Vi or Emacs? Let’s get all the Holy Wars out on the table at once.

          1. Nano!

            (Though I must admit I only use that on the command line, I use Gedit if I can work in the desktop).

            cr

        2. vi, of course. Ever get asked to help someone at their terminal with a document in Emacs? Behind every innocent keystroke lies an unknown, undocumented and unpredictable macro.

          Substitute all occurrences of ‘e’ with ‘ee’ and wrap around at the end of the document.

          This was several hundred VT100 terminals running on a ‘state of the art’ VAX-11 minicomputer.

  10. A debate with which one might with full propriety just say “I don’t give a sh-t”.

      1. Did you hear about the constipated mathematician?

        He worked it out with a pencil…

  11. We use #3 here in our household of 5 cats and 2 humans. The rolls get put away in a drawer before bed and then put back out in the morning…otherwise one of our cats will get hungry, eat some TP, then barf.

    I set up traps by balancing metal cups full of water on the rolls to dissuade the cat; however, the traps woke up my girlfriend so she vetoed them. Instead of us training the cats, the cats succeeded in training us.

  12. Maybe it’s just me, but I have no preference for one of the first two. I have never understood why it makes any difference at all. Can someone help me out here?

    1. No 1 appears more hygienic: no fecally contaminated fingers on the wall, which in turn could/would contaminate the paper. Well theoretically that is, I do not think a serious study has ever been made.
      Ignoble Prize stuff, methinks.
      Eric is spot on about the real monsters, I second that.
      For one reason or other -I haven’t a clue how that came about- I’m considered responsible for the toilet paper in my household. A somewhat overrated power, in my modest, but empirically tested, opinion.

        1. Damn – I misread initially and thought you were asking about getting poo off the wall. Well, to answer that question first :

          Jesus – how do you get poo off the wall?!

          With a paint scraper. Or a damp sponge, if you were canny and used tiling, “aquapanel (other brands are available)”, or washable gloss paint.
          You may not be surprised, but this has been the topic of non-trivial amounts of research. Most people don’t think this way when decorating their houses, but when designing an animal house to accommodate a thousand-strong guinea pig colony, or 30 shit-flinging monkeys, then you will find that there is “prior art”. (Now there’s a phrase to use cautiously in conjunction with “shit-flinging”!)
          Free tip : I’ve experienced the results of people try to use a blow torch. Don’t do that.
          (Actually, the welder was cutting through from the other side of the bulkhead, but he knew the shit was there. But he had the fan blowing away from him, and didn’t give a … you guessed?)
          If you don’t find this answer helpful, there’s a website that I’m sure will be able to help. (I’m going to dirty my web browser cache now.) Remember, you led me into this temptation!
          Well, surprisingly, there is an answer to the “off” question in Genesis. It’s not very comprehensible though.
          And how about the “on” question? Well, that has a shorter list of answers. Which isn’t terribly helpful.
          From what I’ve seen in toilets on rigs all over the world, the answers to your actual question seem to be, in descending ordure of poo-pularity : [cue music from your favourite pop chart programme]
          #1 – running out of paper, wiping your bum with your fingers then wiping your fingers on the wall. Always a classic in workplaces everywhere, thought less common in offices than building sites, this one has s refreshingly simple appeal.
          #2 – explosive diarrhoea. An eternally lasing classic. Getting those coveralls off after doing the buttock-clenched sprint across the site is always a hilarious struggle that will have you rolling on the floor, helpless with mirth. Well, maybe not so mirthful.
          #2 a – the reprise of #2, but with the new hand on the site not recognising the traditional war cry of “Coming through!”, and getting involved in a collision. Rolling on the floor again. Full hand prints on the walls. It is a time honoured classic that everyone knows and nobody wants a repeat of.
          Is that enough on this topic? I’m intrigued by the assertion that our god-squadly friends often make that “the BuyBull can answer all questions” and am trying to think of other questions that I can ask it. Oh – here is one from Mr Frankin Zappa, in the persona of “Joe” from Canoga Park.
          And Zappa has them stumped! So, not all questions can be answered by the BuyBull.
          Oh, there is so much potential there!

        2. Dear Diana, I’m not talking about actual poo on the wall.

          However, we do use more than one helping of TP when wiping our butts. And TP is not impenetrable to germs. Hence our fingers are contaminated by these invisibles like enterococcus and E coli. If it were not, there would be no point in washing our hands afterwards, would it? Do you walk off after defecation without washing your hands? (Thank you for stating the case).

          Note, the most contaminated items in a household are found in the kitchen, not in the toilet. Swabs from a cellphone give richer cultures than from a toilet seat.

          Another note: I’m not a TP-nazi, if they hang it the wrong way round, I just leave it as is and tut-tut to myself.

          1. Poop is everywhere.

            I of course don’t poop. I’m like cecropia moth.

      2. No 1 appears more hygienic: no fecally contaminated fingers on the wall, which in turn could/would contaminate the paper. Well theoretically that is, I do not think a serious study has ever been made.

        There is a serious lack of consideration of these matters. Personally, I always wonder how much contamination is spread by buttons, fly zips and fabric in the phase between standing up and leaving the stall for the wash basin.
        This question goes through my mind doubly when the only toilets on the rig which are working are the two with the sign on the door saying “catering crew use ONLY”. Obviously, having separate toilets for catering staff is what my Safety Ossifer colleague would describe as a “Rule Written In Someone’s Blood” (does that need any elaboration?), but the effectiveness of regularly breaking that rule … makes me think.

        Ignoble Prize stuff, methinks.

        I have a friend who won an Ig (a couple of years ago – pony tails). I shall see if he is interested in a second.

        1. I know Pek van Andel, he got an Ignobel prize (1999?) for MRI-ing a copulation. I’m still *very* jealous.

          1. He got the Ig for the MRI scans, of for publishing them.
            I do not believe that this was the first time the act of coitus was recorded in an MRI. I’ve known medical students. ‘Nuff said?

        2. IIRC, there was a study done showing that public toilets were so full of disease causing micro-organisms that you were better off not to wash your hands after using them. You actually pick up more bacteria etc than you lose. And of course the bacteria you already have are at least your own rather than someone else’s.

          1. Good points.
            Most people let their “yuck” factor overrule their head when it comes to practical microbiology.
            I was having a beer in a caver’s pub in the Mendips once, when a member of the cave rescue team (diving section) turned up late for the meeting. Turned out that he’d had to be doing a sewage dive to clear a blocked pump. Slightly important, otherwise a million or so toilets would have backed up.
            Oddly, nobody moved away form him. But I am talking about cavers, not normal people.

          2. I’ve floated (not dived!) in a sewer. It is actually about 99% water (which kinda puts those ads that claim “99% pure” into perspective). This was the old Orakei Main Sewer in Auckland, which ran in an aqueduct across Hobson Bay on a 1 in 3000 gradient. It’s about 5 feet wide by 8 feet high. We were supposed to be inspecting the condition of it.
            We wore full divers’ “dry suits” – though they were fully wet inside with sweat after a while, sewage is warm. And we took truck tyre inner tubes and half walked, half floated, started one side of the bay and emerged a mile later at the other side.

            It was smelly, but not as bad as I had imagined. Still, I wouldn’t volunteer to do it again.

            Anyone who thinks commercial diving is all Jacques Cousteau, floating around in crystal clear warm waters with tropical fishes nibbling your fingers, is dreaming. More like freezing cold, muddy, zero visibility, inspecting sewer outfalls or finding bodies…
            (I say that as an observer, I’ve never dived).

            cr

          3. We were in what are modified dry suits for the flight out to the rig a couple of weeks ago. 22C air temperature and 17C water temperature. It wasn’t exactly nice, and the flight was barely an hour (with another hour of fscking around sweating into the suit). Fortunately the water temperature has gone over the 20C mark now, and flight suits are not required.
            [Sideline : Canadian flight suits are designed to sustain the person in 2C water for 6 hours with only 2C loss of core body temperature. While in Gabon we literally worry about dying of shark attack instead of hypothermia. Horses for courses.]
            The main thing that would hamper me from going to do a sewage dive would be that I’d have to learn how to use a “full face” mask (ummm, a KMB, most likely), which is non-trivial. Many different redundancies compared to conventional open circuit SCUBA. Oh – and sealed-gloves are another thing I’d have to learn, but since you’d dive with a “tender” to help you kit-up, that shouldn’t be a real issue.

          4. [Snigger.]
            The diving supplier I linked to has a “contaminated water” diving system. A.K.A sewage diving. No surprise there.
            Name of the product is “Dirty Harry”
            Hamburger, punk?

      3. Getting poop on the wall requires that you touch your bottom before you reach for the TP. Maybe you ‘over-hangers’ do that, but we ‘under-hangers’ know better. If you don’t want fecal matter on the wall, grab the TEP *before* you wipe.

    2. Most of us find it much easier to tear off a few sheets of TP with one hand when it’s hung in the over position.

  13. There’s a Simpson’s episode where Social Services take away the kids, in part because the toilet paper is in the “improper overhang fashion”. I take this to be authoritative of how the paper should be hung.

    1. Yes and note that it was hung in the over position – the wrong position.

      1. But note also that authority figures in the Simpsons are usually incompetent buffoons who get everything ass backwards.

      2. Dear Diana, maybe I missed post here or there, but why should TP hang in the ‘underhang’ position? Any rationale for your prediliction?

        1. It is easier to get the right amount of paper and it looks aesthetically better because the tail is hidden.

          1. I appreciate you have a rationale, a good thing.
            However, I beg to differ in both instances. It is hence just a matter of taste, me seems. No real Right or Wrong, unless my suspicions about hygiene turn out to be correct.

          2. Nicky, it’s just a WEIT inside joke, ever since Diana related her strange obsession with reorienting other people’s TP rolls according to her own misguided sense of propriety.

            So yes, I guess you have missed a few posts here and there. 😉

            In the end (heh), we humor her because we love her despite this great fault.

            (And to be fair, there are inexplicably a few others here who share her strange preference.)

  14. Quilted Northern toilet tissue has a series of bizarre ads that make sense only if you see a few of them. I shall lower my standing further here, by providing the links:

    Little Miss Puffytail:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDkwFzmJTk0

    Sir Froggy:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gEiZ3FlMng

    Daddy Gator:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckuihFjhHuI

    Great Grandpa Thaddeus:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArcudVVfVFI

    And the worst: Conductor Randy:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgIVT6gi42g

    Of course, all of these matters are best settled by the Privy Council.

      1. Personally, I was glad to have them right here rather than have to click away for each. 🙂

        1. Me too, embeds don’t bother me, though I gather they can be an issue for some people.

    2. I note how all the tp has no overhang or underhang so as not to upset either constituency.

      2. Good grief. You made me view each of these monstrosities all over again!

        And, you are right!

        Um, detective career in your future?

        1. Um, detective career in your future?

          Wouldn’t a detective career in the past be as good an explanation?

          1. Indeed. Even the seam on the rolls was deliberately placed on the non-viewed side.

  15. I can’t believe Diana has yet to weigh on when there’s toilet paper orientation on the line!

  16. I see it as a blatant (not to say desperate) attempt to engage Diana in a conversation.
    P.S. Of course version 1 is correct.
    ..

  18. I’m wondering if Prof. Ceiling Cat, who knows the ways of cats, can tell us if cats are less likely to unroll a roll if it unrolls from the back instead of the front?

  19. There is a kind of TP dispenser you encounter in public toilets and workplace toilets quite often, in which a large diameter (12″ or more) roll is placed inside a metal cabinet. This avoids the correct-way-to-hang issue by rolling in parallel with the wall rather than at right angles to it.
    Whilst this solution may be convenient for the people charged with keeping the cubicles stocked with paper, I find it has a distinct downside, namely that the relatively high inertia of the roll often means that a pull on the end of the paper merely detaches a sheet without rolling the roll. The free end thus disappears up inside the slot and the poor user has to grope around inside the cabinet trying to find it. A bum deal, one might say.

    1. Real frustration is when the end of the new roll turns out to be stuck down too firmly so it won’t start to unroll. This goes double when it’s the reserve roll in one of those big workplace dispensers…

      cr

    2. You could also avoid the issue by setting a normal holder in the wall vertically instead of horizontally. I suspect that would be just socially odd enough to really weird people out. 🙂

      Of course, I have been known to push a supermarket shopping cart backwards through the store, just to see if it bothers someone so much that they feel compelled to say something. So I may be a bit of a contrarian.

      1. I have been known to push a supermarket shopping cart backwards through the store, just to see if it bothers someone so much that they feel compelled to say something

        Yes, that is very weird. But it’s also weird for someone to want to “correct” you.

        1. The only real difference is that driving it backwards, it corners like a forklift instead of like a car. Which is nice if you have to reorient the front of the vehicle without much clearance room in the front, but its not as smooth at turning when you do have clearance room in front.

          1. If you get it up to speed and let the “front” end (i.e. the end with the caster wheels, currently bringing up the rear) get out of line, it does a neat reverse flick.

            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki34_hBpRuE

            You just have to make sure it doesn’t take out other shoppers, shelves etc.

            cr

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