Why Can’t Anyone in My Family Manage to Change the Dang Toilet Paper

August 8, 2024 10:03 AM

NYT: Wirecutter takes on the perennial question "Frankly, some people are just monsters. And those monsters are our loved ones."

I just found this hilarious. The author suggests finding different ways to store and replace the toilet paper, but in the end (har)...

"Investigate why your current dispenser isn’t functional for your family:
You asked why your family can’t manage this simple task. I don’t know. And the only way you can know is to ask them, without sarcasm or passive-aggressiveness. If you’re always going to do the job, then the job will always get done, and they won’t see any need to change. Stewing about the toilet paper roll isn’t going to help you or your family become more considerate of one another.

If they still refuse to replace the roll, even though it’s right in front of their faces, you may just have to resign yourself to doing the restocking. Because, in the end, if you’re the one who needs the toilet paper, you want it to be there for you."

Or … you could just not replace the toilet paper. Even after I added one of the larger toilet paper holders, my family could not manage to swap out the roll. But I feel grateful that there are backup rolls at the ready, at least."

posted by jenfullmoon (52 comments total)

Tell me you have a teenager without telling me you have a teenager
posted by gottabefunky at 10:08 AM on August 8 [5 favorites]

alas, one does not have to have a teenager for this to be an issue... at least with a child, you can hopefully train them out of it (and it's a societal good if you do!). Fewer levers are available with adults...
posted by sagc at 10:13 AM on August 8 [6 favorites]

If they still refuse to replace the roll, even though it’s right in front of their faces, you may just have to resign yourself to doing the restocking.

Yeah, but now they know it irritates you, so they are ahead.

The authors of shit like this always seem to have no clue how shit families can be.
posted by biffa at 10:16 AM on August 8 [8 favorites]

Reduce the frequency of annoyance by installing a cheap bidet attachment and watching as your household's toilet paper consumption plummets. Save some money by being cheap single-ply - the stuff is annoying as hell normally, but gets the job done with no complaints if used in conjunction with a bidet.

Have you gone ahead and done that? Welcome to a sensation of cleanliness you've never experienced before. You may initially be shocked by the ice cold force of a Neptunian rimjob, but give it a few tries and you will quickly adapt. Your body and conscience will thank you soon enough.

Every time I move into a new apartment, I install a new bidet attachment and leave it as a gift to those who come after me. I'm a modern Johnny Appleseed.
posted by gunwalefunnel at 10:20 AM on August 8 [21 favorites]

I just want to know why the Wirecutter has somehow sprouted an advice column.
posted by Belostomatidae at 10:24 AM on August 8 [9 favorites]

I thought that this was going to be the classic argument about whether you install the roll correctly, or ether you install it backwards. (I believe the choice on this one is strongly correlated with cat ownership, and also I'm not going to say which way is which.)

I like that the vertical holders seemingly avoid this question.
posted by surlyben at 10:24 AM on August 8 [4 favorites]

I just want to know why the Wirecutter has somehow sprouted an advice column.

Probably this was just a framing device for a bunch of toilet-paper-related recommendations.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:30 AM on August 8 [5 favorites]

I have this curmudgeonly suspicion that there is absolutely a right way and a wrong way with the vertical holders as well, but I won't know which is which unless and until I use one regularly and someone else replaces it backwards.
posted by dick dale the vampire at 10:31 AM on August 8 [2 favorites]

...I see. I stopped scrolling before I saw their product recommendations, because I thought it was just going to be a retread of every "how to solve a household dispute". This makes more sense.
posted by Belostomatidae at 10:33 AM on August 8

I just want to know why the Wirecutter has somehow sprouted an advice column.

SEO. Have you noticed how Reddit is at the top of searches all the time now? Google has decided it likes Q&A seshs.
posted by heyitsgogi at 10:41 AM on August 8 [1 favorite]

Call me an immature teenager, but I didn't much like changing the roll until I moved into a house with an open-ended holder. It is SO MUCH simpler than dealing with the spring-loaded holder. Mind you, I wouldn't let it go forever with my old spring-loaded holder, but I would indeed wait until the next 'session' to deal with it. Now, they slip on and off in a second or two. It also helps that I keep new rolls in reaching distance of the throne.
posted by hydra77 at 10:56 AM on August 8 [4 favorites]

surlyben, having owned a toilet-paper-shredding cat, there absolutely is a right and a wrong way and I know which is which. Toots could fill a bathroom with paper snow in minutes if left to her own devices.
posted by HypotheticalWoman at 10:56 AM on August 8 [3 favorites]

I too thought it was going to be "over or under" (which is the only real "perennial question" about toilet paper) and I was like "monsters seems a little strong, but I'm listening . . . "
posted by The Bellman at 11:00 AM on August 8 [2 favorites]

HypotheticalWoman - Last weekend I moved into an apartment, my first after divorce and my first place in 35 years to be cat-free. I installed the paper roll the "wrong way". I've never known such freedom.
posted by bacalao_y_betun at 11:01 AM on August 8 [5 favorites]

One of the advantages of living by myself in an apartment with a single tiny bathroom is that when I bring the toilet paper home from Costco, I store the whole giant package that is, somehow, simultaneously both 30 rolls and 384 rolls, where I can reach it from the toilet.
posted by jacquilynne at 11:08 AM on August 8 [5 favorites]

Probably this was just a framing device for a bunch of toilet-paper-related recommendations.

Agreed -- I hadn't realized Wirecutter was a catalog until I saw all those products.
posted by JanetLand at 11:08 AM on August 8

The first time one of my kids replaced the TP I worried they had been replaced by cyborg clones.
posted by metasarah at 11:16 AM on August 8 [1 favorite]

I quietly hung a quote framed in a mat matching the wall colors and theme in the grandkids' bathroom.
"Replacing the empty toilet paper roll is not rocket science nor does it cause brain damage."
It has done no good, although it made their mother laugh.
If I use that bathroom while visiting, I make sure I check for paper and carefully tiptoe around all the laundry that they can't seem to put into the empty clothes basket. Yes, they are monsters and did not inherit the proper chromosomes from their progenitors.

Regarding cats and toilet paper--this quote is extremely silly:
I like that the vertical holders seemingly avoid this question.
Vertical holders are simply scratching posts easily dismantled. Hanging paper the wrong way invites unrolling. Putting an extra roll on the back of the toilet invites it being knocked off the ONE time that the toilet seat is left up. The only recourse is to make sure the lid is down, the door is shut, and there is a high security combination padlock on the door.
posted by BlueHorse at 11:20 AM on August 8 [3 favorites]

If you’re always going to do the job, then the job will always get done, and they won’t see any need to change.

But I can't just let the trash pile up without taking it to the bin. Or let dog pee and poop just sit around. Or let the dishes mold in the sink. Or leave dog hair all over the furniture and floor. Or sleep on smelly, dog-hair covered bedsheets.

Yes, I know you're tired. But SO AM I.
posted by charred husk at 11:32 AM on August 8 [4 favorites]

As long as fresh rolls of toilet paper are easily accessible while sitting on the toilet, I don't really consider this to be a problem.

For most of my childhood my parents didn't believe in toilet paper holders. The roll was left on top of a small chest of drawers that was next to the toilet. Inside the top drawer were more toilet paper rolls. If you ran out, you could easily open the draw and grab a new roll without even having to get up.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 11:36 AM on August 8 [9 favorites]

Beard orientation?
Mullet orientation?

PROBLEM: SOLVED.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:44 AM on August 8

So at one of the theaters I perform at, the performers are assigned 1 night during the run to clean the bathrooms, dressing rooms, etc. and they always grumble that "nobody wants to change the toilet paper rolls." I note that (a) the toilet paper roll setup is a pain in the butt to dismantle, (b) only about two people know exactly how to get it done, one of them being the stage manager, (c) the stage manager notes that the toilet paper the theater buys does NOT match the intended TP that is supposed to go with the toilet paper rolls and that's a lot of the problem, (d) according to her and another theater board member, they argued at the board meetings to change the toilet paper and were denied.

I used to feel annoyed that I never got asked to be a board member when people who came along later than me were asked to, but after that, I really don't feel so bad about not being one any more. I note that I am on the board of an online theater company, where we NEVER have to worry about the toilet paper.

On a related advice note, they also had a very similar column about dealing with the mountain of clothes pile, i.e. suggesting ways to hang up the clothes differently/gadgets to buy, finishing with "yeah, depends on what your loved one is actually going to use." I have a mountain of clothes pile because my tiny, tiny closets literally can't hold all of my clothes, and it annoys me, but so does wrestling my fucking closet to get in and out of it and especially put anything back into it.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:47 AM on August 8 [1 favorite]

For most of my childhood my parents didn't believe in toilet paper holders.

the least complicated the better. The previous place I lived had the sort of mechanisms that you know were chosen because they looked good, fancy, posh (insert your own pompous adjective), but were a bloody pain when it came to replacing rolls (two hands required etc). I'm still not convinced that western civilization won't finally fail because somebody gets so f***ing frustrated by changing a f***ing toilet paper roll that he just didn't give a shit anymore. LET IT ALL COME DOWN!!!!
posted by philip-random at 11:47 AM on August 8

My apartment was built in the 1930s in a New Deal public works sort of situation and it still has a lot of remaining quirks, including the toilet paper holder which I imagine was government issue in prisons and aboard battleships or something. The thing's heavy chromed steel, recessed into a hole in the wall, and to change the old roll you have to stick your finger all the way into the roll and depress a flat spring with what feels like ten pounds of force.

And I with my feeble double-jointed fingers am just... not doing that. Never used it at all when I lived alone. When my partner moved in they were mystified! Why was I (anxious and self-flagellating and generally helpful as I am) always refusing to replace the TP and constantly just leaving one out on the shelf?

Turns out that physical problems require physical solutions. We taped that spring down with extreme malice, it's just a normal amount of annoying to use, and balance is restored. But I am gonna be *so* relieved when we can drill into the walls somewhere and just put up one of those dead-simple hooks.
posted by fountainofdoubt at 12:10 PM on August 8 [3 favorites]

So all the toilet paper holders in our house are just the horizontal bar variety so nothing really to fuss with. What'll usually happen if a washroom runs out of toilet paper is that it'll get replaced because generally extra rolls are right there. If for whatever reason there isn't an extra roll in the washroom then depending on the urgency people might just go to another washroom and do their business there or get some new rolls and bring them back to the washroom to replace the empty one and then carry on.

Sometimes someone will use the washroom without checking the roll, even though it's right there, and then they'll crack the door open and shout for someone to bring them a roll or two. I think it's happened to all of us at least once.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:17 PM on August 8

But you are all recycling the cardboard tube though, yeah?
posted by biffa at 12:37 PM on August 8 [6 favorites]

the side-eye in here is almost unbearable
posted by seanmpuckett at 12:46 PM on August 8 [2 favorites]

I have to wonder if this TP holder (NSFW) would make it more or less likely that the roll would be changed. But I am firmly on team bidet; water is much better than paper! And if you are fortunate enough to have the right infrastructure, you can even get air-dried, so no need for paper at all.
posted by TedW at 12:52 PM on August 8 [1 favorite]

There is literally nothing difficult about changing the roll in virtually every home bathroom. There just isn't. My sympathies to those who live with monsters.
posted by tiny frying pan at 12:52 PM on August 8 [1 favorite]

FFS, people. When you're done using the roll, please remember to rewind. If you could do it for VHS, you can do it for TP.
posted by phooky at 1:16 PM on August 8 [9 favorites]

Where is my colored toilet paper!
posted by Czjewel at 1:23 PM on August 8

The thing's heavy chromed steel, recessed into a hole in the wall, and to change the old roll you have to stick your finger all the way into the roll and depress a flat spring with what feels like ten pounds of force.

Ah, yes, this *is* what they have at the theater, minus the hole recession.

I guess even the ol' "pop it out, stick TP on/off and re-pop it back in" is just too hard for people.
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:58 PM on August 8 [1 favorite]

Seconding the bidet; even if you can't install one, or if you live alone, there are camping/portable bidets (just a squeeze bottle with a long neck basically.)
posted by tavella at 2:08 PM on August 8 [1 favorite]

Kind of amazing how upset people are about this issue.

So, why?

Here's what occurred to me:

We all know that opioids tend to be very constipating, and I think it makes sense to think that might include endogenous opioids, and that our systems reduce these endogenous opioids to a low level to help with bowel movements, which leaves us irritable and cranky just at the moment we need to reach for our TP, because right then we're basically in withdrawal.

And I think the fact that low doses of a very potent opioid receptor blocker, naltrexone, are effective at putting refractory cases of IBD into remission tends to support that view, and also suggests that incomplete emptying of the bowel plays a role in the development of IBD.
posted by jamjam at 3:15 PM on August 8 [1 favorite]

Here's the thing: Costco rolls are larger in diameter than the average roll and don't fit in our recessed dispensers until some of the TP has been used. If the new rolls are crammed into the dispenser anyway, then it is almost impossible to pull off any sheets without it just shredding. This dilemma is the root cause of the TP dispute in our household. I refuse to put the new roll in the dispenser until it is small enough to work and my spouse crams them in and they don't work (and puts them in backwards but that's a different dispute).
posted by bz at 3:27 PM on August 8 [2 favorites]

At this point, I would like to remind everyone that Seth Wheeler, who invented toilet paper as we know it, included diagrams with his original patent demonstrating that the correct way to load toilet paper is for the paper to roll over not under.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 3:31 PM on August 8 [5 favorites]

which leaves us irritable and cranky just at the moment we need to reach for our TP, because right then we're basically in withdrawal.

I mean that, or that 'not replacing the toilet paper roll' is a stand-in for the all the other basic, simple tasks family members foist upon the one member who does them, and keeps 'family society' running, and the fact that they don't even assist with such a basic activity is proof they won't do any of the more complex tasks that keep 'family society' running, which induces either despair or a bit of rage. And they are too lazy to be clever and leave a square or two on the roll so they can say it wasn't time to change it yet.

Or maybe they remember that one time the roll fell and rolled across the room making the sitter have to waddle across the room to get it.

Any of those I guess....
posted by The_Vegetables at 3:44 PM on August 8 [6 favorites]

Seinfeld - George: toilet paper will be the same for 10,000 years.
posted by The_Vegetables at 3:54 PM on August 8

But you are all recycling the cardboard tube though, yeah?

No, I use them to choke pandas which I dump onto protected wetlands while rolling coal in my modded Ford F-450.
posted by star gentle uterus at 4:14 PM on August 8 [10 favorites]

Kind of amazing how upset people are about this issue. So, why?

....Tell me you're the person who usually neglects to replace the toilet paper without telling me you're the person who usually neglects to replace the toilet paper.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:27 PM on August 8 [5 favorites]

My partner regularly removes the roll without remembering to replace the roll, so I added a label: "FFS REPLACE THE ROLL". It doesn't make him any more likely to replace the roll, but it does make me laugh whenever I see it so I'm not mad at him about the issue.
posted by Pitachu at 5:14 PM on August 8 [1 favorite]

My husband never replaces the roll and it drives me crazy! For people who don't see what the big deal is, just mentally replace this argument with the one about people who always leave the toilet seat up.
posted by subdee at 8:33 PM on August 8 [1 favorite]

He leaves a new roll on the toilet tank or sometimes on the sink next to the toilet, and before anyone says 'what's the big deal? it's still in grabbing distance' I don't know when he's done that, VS when there's no toilet paper. Because I look for it on the holder, where it should be, you know? I don't look behind and all around me! Just put it on the holder so everyone knows where it is.
posted by subdee at 8:36 PM on August 8 [1 favorite]

I have one of those recessed TP holders in my downstairs bathroom, which in addition to not really fitting the Costco rolls of TP, is a little far for me to comfortably reach. So I also have one of these freestanding TP holders (not really that one, but a similar design). It's a tall-ish pole with a horizontal crosspiece that rotates from vertical to horizontal; you can stack 3 or 4 rolls of toilet paper on the vertical pole, and then have another one that's in use on the horizontal part. Mostly when folks use the last of the roll, since there are more rolls there on the pole, they do get replaced. And then I can replace 4 rolls at once from the cabinet when the rolls on the holder are all used up!
posted by leahwrenn at 8:53 PM on August 8

As long as fresh rolls of toilet paper are easily accessible while sitting on the toilet, I don't really consider this to be a problem.

yeah neither of us replace the roll? it's way easier to grab a roll off the sink counter & unwind a couple sheets than it is to twist around like a Rob Liefeld character, T-Rex my arms up, & paw at the roll in the dumb place they happened to install the TP holder

like other than visual tidiness I don't really get what benefit there is to the roll being dispensed? (we don't have a cat)
posted by taquito sunrise at 9:05 PM on August 8 [1 favorite]

having said that, there are currently no fewer than five active toilet rolls on the sink counter & toilet tank in various states of fullness, because taquito boyfriend is an agent of fucking chaos, so it's not like there's nothing to shake my dang head about around here

(also sometimes he leaves the only roll on the towel rack or windowsill like three feet above the toilet & I have to FULL STAND to retrieve it, arrrrrgh)
posted by taquito sunrise at 9:17 PM on August 8 [3 favorites]

This is another post where im reminded not just that people have lots of cultural quirks/demands/hang-ups, but that they really refuse to acknowledge that these are just their (aculturated) preferences. Like, you can have a society where the expectation is that the toilet goer is responsible for bringing their own paper, or you can have a society where the prior toilet goer 'pays it forward' paperwise for the next, or you can have a society where the task is asigned by seniority or rotated etc. But it always amazes me the people who sit their fuming that they are unable to impose on others their preferred norm and furthermore are flabergasted that their norm isnt self evident.

Everything in your life that isnt a rock in a cave is a recent arbitrary cultural invention and nearly all of them are optional and mostly status signalling. Why are you even using the least soil resistant barrier possible for this task. why do you kill trees to s on them? why do you care how others do it? This country amazes me.
posted by No Climate - No Food, No Food - No Future. at 9:37 PM on August 8 [1 favorite]

This country amazes me.

Which country? I think it's more than the US that uses toilet paper.
posted by LizBoBiz at 10:23 PM on August 8 [6 favorites]

This has been fun to read and I have mentally added this to the long list of benefits of living alone.
posted by koahiatamadl at 7:20 PM on August 9 [1 favorite]

Which Country The NYTimes wirecutter piece is set in the USA, that was the country I was remarking on, but yes, i agree, the phenomina of assuming ones cultural preference is an absolute moral good is not restricted to american household performances and is indeed an international phenomina.
posted by No Climate - No Food, No Food - No Future. at 10:12 AM on August 10

it's best if whoever finishes the roll replaces it, but as a hedge against forgetfulness, since the shower curtain is within reach, i installed a recessed compartment in the wall above the dispenser, with some tailor's shears inside, a window over them, and an "in emergency break glass" sign.

i'm probably joking, but i might not be.
posted by busted_crayons at 4:58 PM on August 10 [1 favorite]

Why hasn't anybody in this thread managed to post the dang obligatory link
posted by flabdablet at 5:54 AM on September 3