T.P. stands for Toilet Paper. *don't read with a full stomach

I was going about my day offending people and sinning...etc you know, the normal Christian life.  At the end of the day, I found myself ranting about my philosophical/theological thoughts about TP to my good, not-so-bachelor-anymore friend Jess. He told me that most people don't think this much about TP. Maybe he was trying to infer that I am being psychotic about this. Nevertheless at the risk or sounding a bit abrasive, I took his suggestion and decided to put it on the blog. 

Ok, Toilet Paper.   Have you ever wondered why TP is white?  Some time ago I've heard of some survey questioning what percent of people "look" at the wiped paper before putting it in the bowl. If I remember right, more than half of regular Toilet attendees require visual verification of their wiping skillz. So here's my theory about the white paper: we need a perfectly high quality canvas to start with so that our "art work" will be well contrasted.  Kind of like how artists always start with white washing their canvases so that their brush strokes show up with vigor and crispness in their appearance.  Personally I'd have to admit that when... no, no need to invoke your visuals here...  If you have no idea what I'm talking about, don't bother, and go to the next paragraph.  Its a lot more important.

In all seriousness though, the regular consumer's choices say a lot about how we entirely take Toilet Paper way too seriously (though arguably, I'm the one taking it way too seriously by writing a blog post about it). If you buy the obvious choices of TP's from your Kroger, what you will pay for is one of those brand toilet papers featuring a big cuddly bear butt on the front of the packaging. As the packaging suggests (or is supposed to suggest), these TP's are ultra soft, thick and cushy. If you are short on cash or are in a pinch (let the reader understand), you will travel half way down the aisle and buy the store brand TP's, which are more of the "gotta get'r done" type. Both types of TP's, believe it or not comes from Virgin Pulp. Let me explain: They cut trees down in both managed AND un-managed forests, process it into pulp,  Bleach it, and Turn it into TP. Now, in Paul world, toilet paper might as well be old news paper, needless to say, I was shocked!  Shocked to hear that quality matters so much to the average consumer when it comes to TP!

Let me try to put this in context a little.  I try to maintain a higharchy of towels and rags that I use for different purposes in my pad. As the rags age, it goes down the ladder to do less respectable jobs. On the top of that ladder is dish drying towels.  When I have dishes to dry, I take a fresh one out of the drawer and wipe the dishes.  When I'm done, I will hang it on the stove handle so that it can be used as a hand towel until another used dish towel replaces it.  Then I have a sink towel, which is used to wash dishes when its new.  Then it stays around the sink to wipe up counter top spills. Occasionally something will spill on the floor and I will take a old sink towel and throw it on the floor for it to do its job on the floor before it goes to the washing machine.  THEN there are the ragged towels that doesn't ever get washed. Rather it lives in my tool box, or get thrown away after wiping up engine oil and brake fluid from my garage floor. Wow, this is turning into a involved analogy.  To me, using Virgin Pulp as TP is equivalent to using a drying towel to wipe up my garage floor. Its a waste!  The same way the garage floor does not deserve to be treated as dishes, my dirty butt does not deserve to be pampered with such finely processed, religiously bleached, state-of-the-art invention!  Ok, maybe that's a overstatement.  I understand that a "wirebrush and water" solution is not going to be popular :) Anyway, my point is that this deed is not worth any destruction of creation.  From what I hear from the rather humorous news report below (I saw it some years ago...), we are literally wiping off some virgin forest in order to make TP.  I'm glad Gods not easily offended.  Me, as a Potter, if somebody used one of my pitchers as a chamber pot, oh man. I would be lethal.



And we all know Fox news always have their facts straight! :)  okkay....  moving on...

Now, Let me ask you this one question.  Does the quality of "art work" we do in the bath room really make a tangible improvement in the quality of life? I can say for sure that I have no TP racism going on in me. By bottom are fully compatible with TP's of any color or hue it comes in (though...  it really comes only in white that I know of...). Red and Yellow, Black and White, they are all precious in MY sight. You've probably never even given one thought on this subject before reading this post, so I'm assuming I'm talking to a reasonable, easily convinsable audience. Now that you have been educated with my surely unbiased opinion, you cannot say "I've never thought of it before, really." So, I will take a risk in sounding political (AKA. Cheesy). Will you stand with me and actually start to care just a little bit when it comes to Toilet Paper? Next time in the paper products aisle, just go a couple steps to the right or left to find the not-so-advertised recycled paper. Join the fight, wipe with recycled.

P.S. I use Marcal's 100% recycled TP.  Same price as the bear butt brand, and a whole lot more peace of mind.

P.P.S.  I know I've made it my resolution for the year 2010 to write something every month and post it here..... As you can see, I've miserably failed :)  I might blog about my failiure some time else, but for now, I think I will lower my bar and permit myself NOT to be thorough. I've found out that writing is like Magic.  I have very little to write before I start writing.  Then I start writing, and 3 paragraphs later, I realized that I still haven't made my point!  ... but then, maybe I'm just long long-winded and boring.