Free Republic

Elaine Benes sits in a bathroom stall, pleading with a stingy toilet-paper hoarder to "spare a square.""Excuse me. I'm sorry. This is, a, kind-of embarrassing but there's no toilet paper over here.""Are you talking to me?" the stranger asks."Yeah, I just forgot to check. So, if you could spare some."Nope.More awkward banter."Three squares? You can't spare three squares?" Benes shouts.The woman leaves after saying: "No I don't have a square to spare. I can't spare a square." That famous scene from Seinfeld soon may be playing out thousands of times in dorm bathrooms across the Texas A&M campus.It's come to...

You really have to appreciate the little things in life. Consider this: The average American uses 57 sheets of toilet paper a day and more than 20,805 sheets a year. That's a lot of sheet. You really don't appreciate toilet paper until you don't have it. Then you think about the alternatives. Perhaps it's a commentary on American journalism that just a little more than 100 years ago, today's newspaper was tomorrow's toilet paper. And in a good part of the world, TP is still a luxury. Many people think British plumber Thomas Crapper invented the toilet. But the credit...