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Posted on 08/06/2012 4:07:09 PM PDT by Sir Napsalot
... Toilet paper has a history. Of course it has a history. But who thinks of it? Like George (Costanza), we take most of our technology for granted. Of course, we pay a lot of attention to certain technologies, usually the newest and most innovative. But we don't think too much about those other technologies that have become more or less part of our natural environment ....
Toilet paper, in case you're wondering, was in use in China as early as the fourteenth century and it was made in 2′ x 3′ sheets. Everywhere else, and in China before then, people made use of what their environment offered. Leaves, mussel shells, corncobs were among the more common options. The Romans (what have they ever done for us!) used a sponge attached to the end of a stick and dipped in salt water. And yes, as you may have heard, in certain cultures the left hand was employed in the task of scatological hygiene, and in these cultures the left hand retains a certain stigma to this day.
Until the late-nineteenth century, Americans opted for discarded reading material. It's not clear if this is why Americans still today often take reading material into the bathroom, or if the practice of reading on the toilet yielded a eureka moment subsequently. In any case, magazines, newspapers, and almanacs were all precursors to the toilet paper as we know it today. It has been claimed that the Sears and Roebuck catalog was also known as the "Rears and Sorebutt" catalog. The Farmer's Almanac even came with a hole punched in it so that it could be hung and the pages torn off with ease.
....
(Excerpt) Read more at gizmodo.com ...
A bit of TP, then baby wipes, and then a bit more TP is the way to go nowadays...
I was deployed to Uzbekistan in 2004. If the portajohns ran out of good ol’ U.S. style TP, they substituted good ol’ former Soviet Union style TP. I have a souvenir roll of that Russian stuff. Not like sandpaper, but close.
And in a restaurant in Samarkand the WC was an elevated hole in the floor. I only needed to take a whiz but noticed that used TP went into a wastebasket next to the hole. Ewww!
My deployment to an independent republic of the defunct USSR taught me one thing: nothing, I repeat, nothing bad I ever heard about life under communism was ever proven to be wrong. The socialist quality of life sucked beyond all imagining; the middle aged Uzbeks told me so, and I swear their younger generation was nostalgic for Josef Stalin & they told me so too!
Humble toilet paper a measure of the general societal quality of life? You bet your bippy!
They didn’t used to coat the Sears catalog pages. I would think that the coated paper used in their catalog with color inks appeared somewhere in the 1950’s or 1960’s.
Is it the finger she has in her mouth in the photo?
I’m in the former category and white, but I still think I’d have problems.
Timed bowel movements-Leave to Brussels and the Environazi’s to make life hell.
The first time ever I saw a bidet, I was trying to figure out what it was. Sadat was still alive and I was in an English built hotel on the Nile. I bent over it and pressed the handle and got a mouthful. My much more mature and cultured roomate told me that I probably should use bottled water to drink while in Egypt.
Those poor Soviets. The closest thing I could compare their toilet paper to was cray paper, combined with bark. I used to give my ample stock of American TP as gifts from time to time. That sure brought smiles.
I've heard this is the case in some places south of the U.S. southern border as well (possibly because of plumbing). In Texas, I've seen some Mexican restaurants (with standard US plumbing) with little wastebaskets next to the toilet in the men's room. I suspect it's because old habits die hard. Or else it is to put a bunch of napkins used to cover the toilet seat.
Which is why Obama, and Clinton, and Sheryl Crow and the other nannystaters have to force upon Americans less efficient toilet bowls, encourage them not to flush regularly, reduce the quality and consumption of TP, demand that air conditioning can not be adjusted to whatever creature comfort level the resident WANTS to and CAN AFFORD to live at, why American autos must be downsized until they become motorized rollerskates or clown cars, why American hamburgers must be demonized, why....
Yep. I still remember those days.
A thread near and dear to our, uh, hearts...
And the link at #6 is worth a read-thru.
Toodle “loo,”
gp
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