TP for the Q of E

After a bike ride on the trail the other day I used a port-a-potty at the edge of the parking lot. There were two identical plastic enclosures on the wall. One held toilet paper, the other you couldn’t see what was inside and it had a padlock on it with a message “Do Not Remove”. Made me wonder what exactly was in the plastic case. Is this where they keep the “good” toilet paper? You know, like when you were a kid and Mom always had the “good” china and silverware you only used on Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Imagine the Queen of England visiting our area and during a tour of the local farmland and hoi polloi, nature calls to her. She stops in at the trail station and one of her retinue announces

“The Queen requires to drop a deuce. Please issue your finest papier toilette.”

Some maintenance man named Butch with a six day growth of beard and wearing a t-shirt stained with wing sauce steps forward.

“Uh, yessir. Give me, uh, one minute.”

Butch pulls a flap of skin away from his left ear and slips out a small key made of cut crystal. He steps into the port-a-potty, opens the padlock and lifts out a roll of 34-ply toilet paper flecked with specks of gold. He sits the roll on a shelf. It begins playing a Debussy piano concerto. The tube inside, made of wood taken from the limb of a 1000 year old tree in the Schwarzwald of Baden-Wurttemberg, sprays the area with jasmine scented mist.

Also in the container is a hermetically sealed jar containing butterflies, the laughter of small children and light captured from supernova SN 1006. Butch removes the lid and the portable bathroom becomes incandescent and pastoral. A privy fit for royalty.

Then again, the plastic box might just contain some back-up rolls of Joe’s 1-Ply Shitter Paper. 

The Bathroom Conspiracy

I spent this Friday evening cleaning my bathroom. I know, what a way to spend a night but even though as a single male I can live in a fair amount of my own dirt, even I have limits. When the hair in the shower drain compiles so high it creates a new life form who slowly gains sentience, it might be time to clean.

When the dirt on the shower curtain hardens and breaks off in chunks and you examine it only to find gold flakes embedded inside, it’s probably time for some soap and water.

When you buy a toilet brush made from tungsten filaments and after two hours of scrubbing using an industrial mining drill to turn the brush, you still can’t get the toilet bowl clean, you may have waited too long to clean the bathroom.

When you find out friends are telling people the most terrifying moment of the lives was using your bathroom and that the visions of gargoyles eating their face took a month to subside, that is definitely a sign you have waited too long to clean.

So I spent my Friday evening scrubbing my shower and toilet, sweeping and mopping the floor and washing down the sink and counter tops. I should be good until next December. Kidding. I’ll probably do it early, maybe around Thanksgiving.