Today The Eye turns from inconsequential matters like health care reform, the state budget deficit and real estate fraud and focuses on an issue of more intimate concern to our readers: the shrinking size of the toilet paper in public restrooms.
I’ve been noticing this trend for the past couple of years, but I was pushed over the brink of outrage when I went into the men’s room in Café Yumm in the Old Mill District the other day and saw a roll of toilet paper that appeared to have been made for a dollhouse.
An actual side-by-side measurement of the mini-toilet paper next to a piece of normal, home-style toilet paper (from my own home, actually) revealed that the teeny-weeny toilet paper is a mere 3.75” in width compared to 4.5” for the “regular” version – a difference of a full three-quarters of an inch.
(NOTE: The toilet paper sold to the public for home consumption has been decreasing in width too, by about half an inch, but that’s a different issue.)
Moreover, the restaurant mini-toilet paper is made of a flimsy, wimpy, gossamer substance that looks like it might have been woven from spider webs. (On second thought, it doesn’t – spider webs would be stronger.) This pathetic stuff is barely adequate for wiping a child’s nose, much less performing the more robust function for which it was ostensibly intended.
What’s the motive behind the shrinkage? Well, it could be cost savings. Or, because Café Yumm tries to project such an eco-conscious image, it could be a “green” gesture. Saving trees, reducing carbon emissions and all that.
Either way it doesn’t make sense – because a patron is going to have to reel off about 40 feet of the stuff to get the job done properly.
Personally, I would rather feed a dime or quarter into a dispenser to get a supply of real toilet paper than have to deal with this pathetic substitute.
But why should we have to? Doesn’t restaurant food cost enough these days to expect the management to provide us with decent, functional toilet paper instead of this … this … excremental substitute?
It’s time to call the restaurants that perpetrate this fraud to account, and I look forward to getting help from the readers of this blog to do it. Let me know about inadequate toilet paper when you find it and I’ll pass the word on.
You can even mail or drop off samples at the Source as evidence – unused, of course.
This article appears in Oct 8-14, 2009.
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Man, I am stupider after reading this. Who gives an F?
Guess this guy hasn’t been out much the past 10 years or so.
A good news flash for the Rip Van Winkle types.
what a waste of time, resources, and effort. this is a bigger pile than you left in the toilet.
Everybody: I apologize for wasting two minutes of your precious time. In the next post I promise to return to some boring “important” political or economic subject.
don’t worry Bruce, It’s better than a story on why our president won the nobel peace prize. Now that’s funny!
Right on H. Bruce. Sort of “Catch 22”, since it takes more of the narrow, flimsy stuff, so any savings is down the toilet and the user suffers the inconvenience!
Jeff H: Hadn’t heard about Obama and the Nobel until this was already posted. In general I’m an Obama supporter, but I’d say the case for giving him a Nobel Peace Prize at this early stage of his presidency is as thin as restaurant toilet paper.
First the dollar, now toilet paper…..I wonder….
It’s because when the gas prices went up, most companies realized they could fit more boxes on a rail car, thereby shipping more TP in one go. I know, I was shocked when I found it as well. Juniper Paper & Supply carries the only brand of “regular” size I’ve been able to find for commercial use.
Is Plumbers’ unions involved in this swindle, also: 40 ft. of TP per wipe???This decrease has long ago hit home consumption and requires addressing, Goverment Agencies!