You learn a lot about yourself when you run out of toilet paper.

My roommates and I recently ran out of TP and there’s a nasty debate about whose turn it is to get toilet paper, so now (on principle and out of stubbornness) nobody is going to buy any and the situation looks dire around the apartment. It’s become a weird game of holding out. It’s a high stakes game of shit chicken or ass chess. Whatever you want to call it.

Then it dawned on me this morning in the shower – there could be a weird parallel between my apartment’s toilet paper situation and the current Peak Oil fiasco going on in the world today. Work with me here. Just go along with it.

When you first get a new econo-pack of toilet paper, and you know you’re set for a while, you use it to your little heart’s content. You go for an extra three wipes, kick the tires and take another lap around the track. That’s gross. But you could say the same about a new tube of toothpaste or a new bottle of shampoo. You glob the toothpaste on your brush, or you fill your palm with shampoo and you treat yourself right.

That’s like the way the United States was with oil in the 1950s. We had a lot of it and we used the shit out of it. I’m not a historian, but I think in Texas in the 1960’s, they used to have contests to see which town could waste the most oil. It was crazy back then.

Back to the parallel…

Now, with oil, it’s like we’re down to the last remaining squares of our last roll of toilet paper. Some Democrats in Congress are proposing we use some of the magazines next to the toilet. Others think we should use fast food napkins. Republicans deny there’s a shortage at all, or propose that we should just wait to go number two until we get to work. And hippies think we should just take a shower right after and avoid the whole process. We could walk down to the bodega and get more, but we don’t want to deal with them because it’s run by terrorists. You know what I mean?

It’s like when you’re 16 and you’re TP-ing somebody’s house, you never think that 12 years later you’ll have spent all of your money on booze and regret every roll you threw into your neighbor’s tree in high school, because now you’re 28 and using junk mail to wipe yourself.

One of us is going to have to pick some up really soon.

Tags: columns, love/hate with brido, mike bridenstine

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