Toilet paper is an essential part of life. Being without toilet paper is not a great thing. Being without has even made its way into sitcoms. You may be familiar with one infamous Seinfeld episode where Elaine says to her nemesis, “No, I don’t have a square to spare. I can’t spare a square.”
Even hoity toity bidet users still use toilet paper, even if it is a lesser amount than those without a bidet.
Therefore, it is REASONABLE that if normal life were to be interrupted, and your next trip to the grocery store could not be predicted, that ensuring an adequate supply of the paper, would make sense.
But what in the hell is going on with these shoppers the past couple weeks?
I’m used to anxious shoppers buying up supplies, I grew up in a hurricane zone. You could be without utilities for a good week after a powerful hurricane. So water, sheets of wood, screws, nails, generators, flashlights, radios and batteries were gone pretty quickly. I never saw people buy more than normal amounts of TP though.
One has to wonder… were they not wiping before this crisis? Were they going to the store every couple days to buy paper? Are they not conscious of their previous buying habits?
Maybe they are those wasteful wipers, people that have body issues, that do that weird roll around the hand 5-6 times with a dozen or more squares for each wipe. Out of fear of being dimensionally close to their posterior.
Possibly it’s households full of women that obliterate a roll every day or two?
No, I don’t normally contemplate others hygiene, that is, until I see some weird sh*t like I’ve seen the past couple weeks.
My shopping habits may be a bit anal (yes, a pun) but I know the last time I bought TP, and the time before that. I keep my shopping lists on Google Drive. I can easily figure out how many rolls I go through in how much time.
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My most recent trip to the store, just happened to coincide with me needing to buy a pack, fortunately this was a couple weeks ago, so there was still paper on the shelves. I bought my normal sized pack, just one, and I have enough for half a year. I am not wasteful with my TP. Thank goodness. I didn’t know I was prepping for an apocalypse my whole life.
Obviously, these people are driven by what they see in the news, and on social media. They heard the rallying cry for MORE TP! and without knowing why, decided they must hoard the TP as fast as possible.
For whatever reason these people are buying up toilet paper in unreasonable quantities, so let me offer you a potential reason why, that I saw in a forum that I visit.
It kinda makes you think. And it’s the most reasonable (only?) explanation I’ve seen yet.
Why toilet paper??
How do you get the public to run to the store to stock up on supplies before a quarantine? Use Operation Mockingbird, but for good purposes.
The media starts reporting before the fact that stores are selling out of toilet paper. This creates a self fulfilling prophecy. People run to the stores to stock up on toilet paper without even realizing why they need it.
Meanwhile, they also stock up on food, water and other supplies. Now they are prepared for what is coming without even knowing they did it…
Why toilet paper? If the media had reported that they were running out of canned foods or dried goods, bottled water even… people would have rushed to the store to stock up on these specific survival items until they were all sold out. leaving others without these things for the quarantine.
So they picked something benign like TP so that people would buy out something non-critical while stocking up on the assortment of other goods.
Stores are out of toilet paper, bleach and maybe handiwipes. But they are not out of food. Went to the store today and saw customer after customer with canned foods, dried goods and bottled water in their buggies. No one was hoarding these items. Some bought chips, some bought hamburger helper. Each person bought what they needed to stock up on even though the store was sold out of TP. The plan worked!
They got the entire nation to stock up on essential supplies and prepare themselves to hunker down for the storm and all it took was saying that there will be no more toilet paper.
This definitely did make me go, huh! This is an interesting concept. And from what I saw of people’s shopping carts, it truly seems plausible.
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So, next time you shake your head at the lunacy of the TPocalypse, take a look at their carts and inspect the other things they bought.
Reason or not… TP got these people out of their homes, into the stores, and hopefully they got some needed rations while they are there.
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About the Author:
DarkStar (obvious pseudonym) has been an active humanitarian for the past decade, running a charity dedicated to helping the mentally challenged overcome life obstacles.
DarkStar left the corporate digital world working for Google and Chicago Tribune to seek more philanthropic pursuits, after becoming tired of helping the “elites” become richer while people were suffering.
With a degree in Computer Engineering and a background in Physics, DarkStar created and patented an Artificial Intelligence to take the place of mental health professionals and services, to help the mentally ill navigate their daily life.
An avid inventor, DarkStar hopes someday to connect with a similarly minded Angel Investor to create a company that can expand to help many more people around the world.
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