Having safely returned to the United States after seven months on British soil, I thought it necessary to pay tribute to the long time I spent abroad. All the wonderful accents and the many pints of beer and of course the infamous episode of “The Toilet Paper Stalemates.” So Britain, this one is for you.
Once upon a time, in a land of tea and mingers, two gorgeous young American girls lived with a just alright looking English medical student/swinger. One of the flatmates ate more fiber than her peers which resulted in more frequent trips to the “loo.” Consequently, this Metamucilized victim often found that when toilet paper ran out in the flat, she was always the one to draw the last sheet.
To remedy this all too frustrating problem, this flatmate wracked up a phenomenal credit card bill on her parents’ Mastercard by
buying eight packs of toilet paper when the rolls dwindled down to one. In this way, she managed to avoid drawing the “short sheet.” However, in the last two weeks of her stay in London, after supplying the flat with toilet paper for the entire summer and always asking all the flatmates when the rolls remaining numbered only in the twos, if they might buy the toilet paper only to have them remain stagnant, our callous-assed heroine devised a plan.
When this sore-assed flatmate was taking a crap on her last day at her perks-filled, incredibly sweet internship, she was reminded of the dwindling roll left on the spindle at home. Instantly, an idea was hatched. As she left her amazing job for the last time, she snuck a roll of toilet paper into her bag and ran to the train very, very quickly. Thankfully, she was not picked that day by train security for a random bag search. If they had found the stolen goods in her bag, she most likely would have faced instant deportation or worse yet, she might have been asked to return the roll to its rightful owners, and then when she went to take her evening crap, there truly would have been no “square to spare.”
With this obstacle overcome, the only thing left to worry about was sneaking the roll into the flat without anyone questioning her awkwardly bulging bag. The entire train ride home she hoped and prayed to a god she didn’t believe in that neither of her flatmates would be home and ready to pounce with intrusive questions. Alas! The fibrous flatmate’s luck was up!
She turned the key, pushed open the door and what did she hear but the sound of the television on in the living room. She kicked off her shoes and desperately tried to spring up the stairs before she was spotted, when her luck took yet another fateful turn. The TV watching flatmate they call the red-haired wonder called out, “I bought some toilet paper.” Relief! the scar-assed flatmate thought, sighing deeply. “But I only bought a four-pack.” The intestine-tormented flatmate’s, well, intestines, clenched at this added utterance. A four-pack! she thought. This will never last the two weeks before move out!
The anxiety crumpled her body, yet somehow she managed to keep her voice light and pleasant. She thanked her dear friend and crept up the stairs, another plan slowly forming in her head. Yes, yes, indeed! That would work! No one knew she had so thanklessly bitten the hand from which she had eaten for the past three months, and stolen a roll of toilet paper that now weighed as heavily on her mind as two, four, six, zero, one lay on Jean-Val-Jean’s Frenchie arm. More importantly… no one had to know!
The TP-enraptured flatmate morphed into Smeagol, fondling the roll of toilet paper with the tips of her long, green fingers and growling through crushed voice pipes, “Precious, my preeeecious!” It was at that moment that the intrepid anti-constipation-ridden flatmate decided to hide the toilet paper until the roll would surely be needed in a week and a quarter’s time, when the four-pack would most definitely run out and the final flatmate, English Swinger, would neglect to buy new wipies.
This, along with cunning sphincter muscle sensitivity, trained to release craps only when at her second place of employment, would surely get her through! The not-in-need-of-fennel-seeds flatmate breathed a sigh of relief and with a mischievous grin, thought eagerly of the time to come, a time in which her more constipated flatmates would go to take a nice, relieving crap only to find that – GASP – just an empty roll remained! Little would they know that too-regular-for-her-own-good flatmate would be hiding an extra roll underneath a pile of clothing in her room!
The days spent waiting for the extraction of revenge passed slowly on carefully regulated crappings and baited breaths. Finally though, the fated day drew nigh! After a round of wonderfully tasty, yet excruciatingly bowel-painful Indian food, the flatmate came home to her regular crap, only to find that her plans had finally come to fruition! All toilet paper gone and only one roll left, with none of the flatmates aware of the last roll’s existence deep within the bowels of her room!
What comes next in this saga? Given that the anti-toilet paper buying, dirty dishes making, but I will begrudgingly give him mowing the lawn which I neglected to do, swinging englishman, was the only flatmate to not yet buy a roll, could he be pressured into buying the next round of sheets? What forms would this pressure take? Laxatives in his drink?
Or perhaps, just perhaps, the bowel explosive flatmate would sink to the lowest form of despair.
Kaminsky can be reached at lkaminsky@campustimes.org.
