The TP in your Teepee?

My long-time readers may remember when one of my Native American friends attended a barbecue some of my Marine friends and I were having.  He went inside our room to borrow our “facilities” and came back out to rejoin us.  He smiled at us “white boys” cooking outside the barracks and commented, “Indians used to cook inside the teepee and poop outside…and y’all called us savages.”

Along those lines, with toilet paper getting harder and harder to find in some areas, and that which can be found is approaching the value of its weight in gold, it’s tempting to ask, “What do you do when there’s no TP in your teepee?”

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Yes, the toilet paper shortage is real, and it’s happened before.  In 1973, Johnny Carson joked in his Tonight Show monologue about comments made by Wisconsin congressman Harold V. Froehlich about the possibility of a toilet paper shortage. So many people believed him, and passed the warning on to their friends, that consumers purchased abnormal amounts, causing an actual shortage in the United States for several months.

About that time, and because of the movement to save the planet, TP manufacturers began to make their product from recycled paper.  Some companies made the mistake of advertising their product as recycled toilet paper, and many wouldn’t buy it because they assumed it was made of pre-used toilet paper.

Yuck!

Now, back to my question.

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First, I must point out that humans have really not been using toilet paper for much of our existence, and many people in the world today still don’t use it.  According to Wikipedia, writings have been found that indicate that some Chinese people were using paper for personal hygiene as early at the 6th century AD.  In 589 AD, Chinese scholar-official Yan Zhitue wrote, “Paper on which there are quotations or commentaries from the Five Classics or the names of sages, I dare not use for toilet purposes.”

There are also accounts of an enterprising Chinese entrepreneur mass-producing toilet paper by the 14th century.  Early in that century, it was recorded that in what is now Zhejiang province alone, ten million packages of 1,000 to 10,000 sheets of toilet paper were manufactured annually.

In the new world we had to wait until the 19th century for commercially produced TP.  Joseph Gayetty advertised the first factory-made paper specifically for toilet use in 1857.  His original advertisements use the tagline, “The greatest necessity of the age! Gayetty’s medicated paper for the water-closet.”  He was so proud of his product, which was made of hemp with added aloe, that he had his own name printed on every sheet. 

Now, I’m not going to make a joke about people smoking his hemp paper, but I have to wonder about him putting his name of each sheet.  Considering its use, I don’t think that was very well thought out.

Just saying.

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Seth Wheeler, of Albany, New York, obtained the earliest American patents for rolled toilet paper and dispensers, which were in common use here by 1883.

Yes, before that, TP was sold in boxes containing individual sheets.  Individual sheets? 

Yup.

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OK, after educating you with a partial history of toilet paper, we come to what may be the most important part this post, and it harkens back to the title.  What do you do when there’s no TP in your teepee…uh, house?

As you can see, humans didn’t even have toilet paper available for most of our history.  So we should look back at history to figure out what we can do if the shortage becomes all-too real.  What are our options if necessary paper becomes unavailable and the end of that last roll is in sight?

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So what did people do, and some still do, without toilet paper.

Rich people might use wool, lace, or hemp, according to Wikipedia.  At the same time some poor folks pooped in rivers, then washed off in the same waterway as their product washed downstream.  I guess you could call that “release, rinse, relax.”  One obvious problem with that is that people downstream may receive your “product”.  Yeah,

I’ll say it was less than pleasant for them but, if they took their drinking water from that same river, it could be downright dangerous.

Other poor citizens “went” wherever they could, then took advantage of whatever was at hand to wipe their hineys.  This could be rags, sand, leaves, seaweed, corn cobs, animal furs, or sticks, among other things.

While I am too young to have ever done so from necessity, my parents told me about how happy they were as kids when the new Sears & Roebuck catalog came every year because the family would soon be using it in the outhouse.  They said it was vastly better than the corn cobs they had to use when the catalog ran out.

The bad news is that Sears (Whatever did they do with Roebuck?) stopped printing their general merchandise catalog in 1993.  Worse most Americans would be hard-pressed to find even a single corn cob.

Again, what to do?

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Well, you can take a note from my parents and use other types of paper, like paper towels, newspapers, phone books, notebook paper, printer paper, envelopes, etc.  Unused baby wipes are another alternative.  Heck, even facial tissue can serve pretty well.

The problem is, these types of paper are not designed to break up in water so can cause serious problems in your plumbing, so you should not flush them.  Rather, keep a small trash can nearby with a plastic liner and a lid.  After use, put the waste-paper in there and close the lid.

While you could still use many of the other items people once used for wiping, I balk at utilizing a stick or rock for cleaning (and I use that word loosely) my backside.

In many parts of the world, people cringe at Americans’ use of toilet paper in the first place.  They use something many of you may have heard of, the bidet.  For those who have never heard of such a thing, a bidet looks a lot like a toilet.  It’s the function that sets it apart.

According to one Italian resident, “People sit astride, frontally, and wash with water and soap.  It can seem weird to you, but it is very useful, especially when you don’t have time for a full shower.  Sometimes we use it also for washing the feet.”

As the helpful lady pointed out, the first few times you use a bidet may seem odd.  I mean, most Americans, myself included, are just not accustomed to having a stream of water squirting against our backsides, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea to use a bidet if you have access to one.  It would definitely be better than not cleaning at all.  You could even make your TP supply last a lot longer by just using a small amount of it to do the final drying.

Since bidets are not common on this side of the big pond, and supplies of toilet paper seem to be running short, I looked for alternatives.  I found a man on Youtube.com who created a makeshift bidet out of a garden sprayer.  You know, the kind you pump to pressurize after filling it with some liquid?  Another alternative would be the sprayer heads attached to a length of hose that some people use in the shower.

Once done you can again use a little toilet paper to dry off.  If you are completely out of toilet tissue, there is another possibility.  Many stores carry low-priced wash cloths.  A quick check online revealed that Wal Mart has a 24 pack of 12”x12” wash cloths for $14.99.  That’s just over 62 cents apiece.  You know those diaper pails with a plastic liner and a lid that helps keep in odor?  Keep one of those near the potty with a little water and disinfectant in it and toss the used wash cloths in too.

Heck, if a sprayer is not available, the wash cloth alone could do the job.  I would recommend washing all those wash cloths separately from the rest of your laundry.

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After the last suggestions, I am not too concerned about my alternatives.  Although I’d rather keep a good supply on hand, I’m not worried about what will happen if I run out of TP in my teepee…and neither should you be.

In other words, you can just wipe those worries out of your head.

Sorry.

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