December was as bad a month as I've had in a long time, so there was no bloggage going on. But 2012 is here. This is my year, the year when everything comes together. Things are only going to get better. To celebrate the new year, I'd like to talk about one of my all time favorite inventions: toilet paper.
In 2002 PBS ran a show called Frontier House. The episodes are on YouTube. It was sort of a reality TV show but PBS style. Three families had to live the same way people did in 1883 in an authentic 1883 setting for I forget how long and see if they could survive. I like archaeology and live in reality, so it sounded interesting. They had to leave all modern conveniences behind. All of them.
The show was on a long time ago. I've forgotten most of what happened, but one thing I'll never forget is the toilet paper situation. In the distant past people wiped with things like sticks. The phrase "the wrong end of the stick" comes from that. The wrong end was the poopy end. By 1883 technology had improved. However, there was still no toilet paper. They used rags. Each member of the family had his or her own rag that had to be kept clean by that individual. If I remember correctly, the rags were kept in the outhouse, and each person would pick the right one by sight identification. I'm not sure what they did in the winter. The show didn't obsess over the rags the way I did.
They had no bleach. They had a river and whatever soap could be made in 1883. How many times a day does a human use the bathroom? Realistically, how clean could they get those rags? After thinking about things like that for a while, I walked away from Frontier House with a deep, abiding appreciation for toilet paper that stays with me to this day. Toilet paper is awesome! I would give up TV before I gave up toilet paper. You can have my toilet paper when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.
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