Avoiding the Great Taboo.

Here’s a question to consider: what do you do if you find that there are some perforations missing from the toilet roll? It happens, you know. It does. It’s one of life’s little imperfections. So here’s the thing:

When you bought that pack of four you took them to the self-service till to pay for them, right? You didn’t take them through a regular checkout where some pretty young thing is sitting pertly and giving you her undivided attention. That would be like wearing a tee shirt printed with…

I use toilet rolls and I don’t care who knows it

… because you do care who knows it. You don’t want anybody to know it, least of all a pretty young thing giving you her undivided attention. Even the more hardened members of society who dare to buy packs of twelve (imagine what that must do for your reputation) and who do take them through the regular checkouts look the other way and whistle while they’re being scanned. Or at least they should if they have even a modicum of decorum. They’re one of life’s great hidden things, one of the very few things about which it is right and proper to be in denial. It’s even occurred to me that very old ladies who no longer care about their image could make quite a business out of standing by supermarket entrances offering to acquire the offensive commodity for people who are still young enough to care.

And then you find yourself holding a toilet roll with missing perforations. All that care and effort gone to waste because now you’re faced with the prospect of brazenly approaching the woman on the service desk and saying ‘Excuse me. This toilet roll has some perforations missing. May I have a replacement please?’ It would be one of those moments which occasionally happen in life, moments when the air turns dark and the nerve ends freeze. You’re straining all appropriate muscles to avoid wetting yourself while the poor woman the other side of the counter is so scandalised that she loses the ability to speak. You consider claiming that you’re doing this on behalf of your bedridden granddad, but you know she won’t believe it because that’s what everybody says. And you’ve already tried to find a wizened old lady to whom you could offer a week’s pension to do the job for you, but there aren’t any around just when you need one.

And so you don’t return it. You curse your cowardice and pull further paper off the roll until you find some perforations a little further along. And all you want it for is to blow your nose before going to bed. No wonder I have bad dreams and wake up stressed.