Kim Wetter

Toilet Paper Etiquette – My Biggest Pet Peeve

Here’s the thing, everyone has some weird pet peeve. I honestly don’t think it’s that weird that mine happens to be about toilet paper.

I don’t get irrationally angry and start yelling at people when they disrespect basic toilet paper etiquette but I’m actively bothered. So, thankfully, you’ll never hear me giving a house guest a lecture after they come out of the bathroom. In that sense, my pet peeve still maintains a bit of rationality. By the time I turn 60, when rational thought starts to fade away, you best believe I’ll be yelling about toilet paper every day.

In the hopes of curbing the crazy, here’s a short list of toilet paper etiquette.

1. Nice toilet paper – I’ve always had this theory that if you treat your ass nicely, it’ll treat you nicely. I absolutely hate cheap toilet paper because it doesn’t treat my ass very nicely and, in turn, my ass doesn’t treat me nicely. If I have to spend a couple extra dollars on soft toilet paper, so be it. My ass will thank me for it later.

2. Overuse of toilet paper – I don’t encounter this often as I’m not often in the stall with someone else but when I do, it bugs me. Toilet paper doesn’t just grow on trees! What are you trying to do, build a fort in there? Toilets get clogged, rolls get used up faster and I get generally annoyed. If you’re dealing with something seriously dire, how about a flush mid way through so that no one needs to use a plunger? It bugs me even more when people use excessive nice toilet paper – but I know it’s not their fault, they just aren’t used to strong, soft sheets.

3. Replacing the roll – My pet peeve irrationality makes me think this is just inconsiderate and lazy. But, for those of you not completely obsessed with all things toilets, I’ll lay out a different scenario. Say you have a guest over and you didn’t replace your roll. Most people don’t check before they sit and might be mid-stream before they realize there is no toilet paper left. This leaves them with the unpleasant task of trying to find some. This includes standing off the toilet and shuffling over to your cupboards and shifting through them. They might go through two or three cupboards before finding a new roll. Who knows what they’ll find?! Who knows if they dripped on your bathroom floor?! Think of that next time you finish a roll of toilet paper.

4. Top to bottom – Speaking of replacing a roll, how you put the roll back on actually matters. You’re supposed to pull down on the roll. This may seem nitpicky but you’ve already made it this far in a post about my pet peeve so deal with it. There’s actually a good reason for making sure the roll pulls from top to bottom: gravity. Ever walked into someone’s bathroom and the roll is pulled out and the tip is sitting on the floor? When you pull from underneath, the velocity of the roll keeps it going long after you’ve broken off your piece. The heavy end is then free to fall to the ground. It’s gross. Top to bottom people.

5. Have some – Nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, is worse than going to the bathroom and realizing there is no toilet paper. This often happens when you’d visit a house full of college-aged boys. It’s already unattractive how messy their bathrooms are and only more unattractive when you find they don’t have toilet paper. I know guys don’t use toilet paper as often as girls do but they do use it sometimes. What do they do in those situations? Scratch that, I don’t want to know.

Well, there you have it. Following those 5 simple rules around me will help ensure I don’t become a crazy 60 year old grandma yelling at everyone about my bathroom rules.