DEEP REFLECTIONS ON TOILET PAPER

“Truth in advertising” has long been the rallying cry of someone. I’m not sure who, exactly; Google was inconclusive. Regardless, there are laws against deceptive advertising. It’s true. 

Or at least, it’s advertised as such.*

I consider myself a smart shopper. I suspect most people do – acknowledging your own dumbness is not a common trait, unless you’re doing it just to make me cry. I’ve always held a steadfast belief that I can see through any advertising mirage and make a sound purchase. But recently I was duped. I felt fooled and hurt - this particular pain in the ass was caused by the very people I trust to keep my ass out of pain.

I’m talking, of course, about toilet paper. When perusing the paper goods aisle recently, I was faced with some impressively packaged TP shouting at me in bold letters: EIGHT ROLLS = SIXTEEN REGULAR ROLLS! I almost grabbed the package and ran, thinking there was no way a deal this good could be legal. But then I noticed that right down the shelf there were TWELVE ROLLS that equaled THIRTY SIX whole REGULAR ROLLS!

Wondering if an even better deal could be found, I widened my scope. I searched the entire aisle – weighing the benefits of soft vs. ultra soft, calculating the exchange rate between one ply and two ply. After what seemed like hours, I decided I oughtn’t just naively believe the many claims about how many regular rolls were in a jumbo roll. I should grab a regular roll for comparison’s sake, so as not to be taken advantage of.

But it was too late. My advantage had already been of taken! For there were no regular-sized rolls… Like Ponce de Leon vainly trying to find the fountain of youth, or Gargamel fruitlessly grasping at Smurfs, I searched and searched. Yet none could be found.

The regular roll was a myth.

Have they ever sold regular sized rolls of toilet paper? How deep does this conspiracy go? I can’t recall ever buying a package of toilet paper that wasn’t marked “XXL Triple Jumbo Rolls. 17 rolls = 73 regular rolls.” Maybe toilet paper exists without an algebraic multiplier, but I haven’t seen it.

Maybe it dates back to the earliest days of toilet paper, when adventurous lavatorial researchers first decided to Elmer’s glue together the two thinnest pieces of paper they could find, and offer the result to mess-conscious bathroom consumers. Maybe they stumbled upon the idea of sticking sheet after sheet of translucent, flower-print sanitary papier onto a cardboard telescope, then cynically doubled the roll in anticipation of our evolution into a fast food nation.

Or perhaps it goes further back, to pre-T.P. ages. Did astute advertising execs at Sterling Cooper Draper Ugg push double rolls of dried wolf skin onto the unsuspecting caveman public?

Apparently, I accept advertising rather easily. It seems obvious, in retrospect. If you handed me a survey that asked “What’s the best part of waking up?” I would inevitably scribble “Folger’s in your cup,” not thinking twice. That answer is wrong. The best part of waking up is nothing. And yet I (theoretically) wrote that the answer is a steaming cup o’ joe plundered from the jungles of South America by Captain Folger, the swarthy coffee baron. Because of advertising.

With the knowledge that my mighty consumer intellect has been felled by the common fanny rag, who knows what I might believe next? How can I hope to sift through the limited-time offers and shopper club cards to find answers to life’s big questions? What’s the ultimate driving machine? Are diamonds really forever? DO I GOT MILK???

Don’t pity me, though. I’ll survive. Save your pity for someone who didn’t just get TWENTY FOUR rolls for the price of just SIX.

This will not fit in your bathroom.

---

*See what I did there? Impressive, eh?