It doesn’t happen often, so when it does, I thought I’d let the world know (or at least the seven people who will read this).
Reader’s Digest had a story in its October issue titled, “You’re Hanging Your Toilet Paper Wrong, And Here’s The Patent To Prove It“. The story claimed to finally give the definitive answer on whether the end of the toilet paper should hang over the top of the roll or be tucked underneath it.
They answered the question by looking at the illustrations that accompanied the original 1891 patent, as seen here.
I must admit I was quite happy when I saw this, since that is the way I’ve always felt toilet paper should be hung. I think my belief was based on reading somewhere a long time ago that this is the style Ann Landers recommended.
After reading the Reader’s Digest story, I decided to do a little investigative reporting, and I came across an unbelievably long Wikipedia article devoted to the issue of which way toilet paper should hang, with over 130 references. I guess the proper term for the issue is “Toilet Paper Orientation“.
Here’s an excerpt from that article:
Advice columnist Ann Landers (Eppie Lederer) was once asked which way toilet paper should hang. She answered under, prompting thousands of letters in protest; she then recommended over, prompting thousands more. She reflected that the 15,000 letters made toilet paper the most controversial issue in her column’s 31-year history, wondering, “With so many problems in the world, why were thousands of people making an issue of tissue?”
On the day of her last column in 2002, Landers wrote, “P.S. The toilet paper hangs over the top.”
If you want to read more about this fascinating topic, be sure to click on the link above. But bottom line, as the patent proves, the toilet paper should go over.
So that was my first little victory (over whom, I don’t know), and then the second one happened while I was watching the Sunday morning news, and there was a story about the difficulty of parking at malls.
Here is the link to the video story.
To cut to the chase, the story, with the blessing of AAA, recommends that you back into a parking space as opposed to just pulling into a spot head first. I have been doing this for years, much to the chagrin of my family who would often question my judgment in doing so.
Actually, my first preference for parking is a pull-through, where I can just drive head first through two parking spots so that I am facing frontwards in a parking space. If that option is not available, then it is time for Operation Back In.
So there you have it. Two signs that the world is ready to come around to my way of thinking.
Now if I only I could get people to think like me about a plant-based diet, exercise, gun control, the death penalty, cigarette smoking, war, and the ovarian lottery then I would feel like I’m really making a difference.
But I guess I have to start somewhere.
Borden's Blather 