More Than You Wanted To Know

Growing up my family has always used Quilted Norther toilet paper. I don't know why, but we always have. Was there some type of toilet paper competition at the beginning of my parent's marriage and Quilted Northern won? What were the criteria for this competition? Smell? Texture? Thickness? Cost? Who knows, and I am certainly not asking for the details. I have never really given this much though, not even in college when I was living in an apartment with two other girls. Truth be told we never really bought toilet paper that often because people bought it for us. It was almost as if our parents and well meaning relatives were afraid that we would forget to buy it for ourselves (what with all of the studying going on and all).

So now that I am living alone here in El Salvador, I have come to the conclusion that there is NO good toilet paper in this country. First of all 99% of toilet paper down here is scented. Gag me. You are literally going to put poop on this paper, giving it a scent is not going to cover it up. Also the scents are never as pleasant as the companies who produce them think they are. I have to hold my nose whenever I go down that isle at the store.

Also down here there is no medium type of toilet paper. You can either buy the expensive kind (for $3.99 a 4 pack) or the cheap kind (for .80c a 4 pack). Now let me just stop your scoffing right there. A dollar a role does not seem that bad, but remember that my budget is $50 a week. I have to make that stretch as far as I can.

So a couple of weeks ago, I had a little time so, I decided to compare every type of toilet paper the grocery store near me carried. This is a very important issue to me. I spent 20-30 min in the isle and I could only find ONE type that was not scented. ONE. I mean, clearly this is what people want, but really?? The unscented type I found was really cheap quality, but at least textured. So I settled on that, but when I went back last week, they were out! Such a dilemma. I just don't know what I am going to do if they don't restock.

(Semi-related side story: As I was examining all of the different toilet papers, an employee came up to me. I thought he was going to ask me if I needed any help or tell me other customers were weirded out that I was spending so much time in the isle or accuse me of trying to steal toilet paper or something. I was ready for, yet another, awkward and embarrassing conversation as I tried to explain what I was doing. Turns out this kid wanted to know if I spoke english, and if so if he could speak to me in english to see how his pronunciation was. Keep in mind I am holding like four types of toilet paper while speaking to this kid in english. I kept wondering when he was going to tell me that I needed to leave the isle. It never happened, he just wanted to speak english. I was back at the grocery store yesterday and he came up to me while I was looking for cinnamon and goes 'HELLO' and scared the bajesus out of me.)

Thank you for listening to my toilet paper rant. Aren't you glad you stopped by today?

Word of the day- Toilet Paper = Papel Higiénico