Toads-in-the-Hole

I stood staring at the toilet paper shelf at the grocery store for several minutes the other day. The question was not whether to by toilet paper, but how much? We’re starting to count down the final days in Vermillion- we move on May 16th- and I’m desperately trying to reduce the amount of stuff in our house. Charcoal, bottles of mustard, diapers, paper plates- all that is consumable must be consumed! Broken crib, rickety chair, ripped jeans- all that is trashy must be trashed! The last thing I need is to stock up on something bulky like toilet paper.

So how much? Normally, we go through toilet paper fairly slowly. We’re once-a-day poopers, and I try to do all my major pooping at work (Pooping on company time gives me a delicious sense of civil disobedience.). Adelaide is still in diapers, and we’ve successfully moved past her habit of giggling while pulling a long strand of toilet paper down the hallway.

Then again, Aimee’s last day at work is today (hooray!), and my last day of class is tomorrow (HOORAY!), which means a lot of at-home pooping. And how should we factor in the wild-cards of three weeks of partying, packing, and loading? All that stress could bind us up, but then again, we might eat and drink too much and get the squirts.

The final conundrum, of course, is the bewildering array of toilet paper choices that are available at even our small grocery store. Single, double, or triple rolls? Quilted? Extra-squishy? Made from fairly traded bamboo stalks or out of angels? I finally threw up my hands and went with 8 rolls of Giant Ultra Quilted Northern (Featuring, for some reason, a cartoon of Queen Elizabeth II. Should I take that as a celebrity endorsement? An indication of the luxurious- nay, royal!- sensation of using Giant Ultra Quilted toilet paper?). 8 rolls of G.U.Q.N.T.P. supposedly equals 20 “regular” rolls (Do they still sell those? Presumably only to middle schools and mental asylums.) I’ll try to let you know how we’re doing, toilet paper-wise, when we move.