Life lessons from toilet paper

Sometimes it's not you, it's the toilet paper

It took me a while to figure out. Longer than it should have. American manufacturing isn’t what it used to be. In this (sort of) post-pandemic world, nothing works quite the way you want it to. We clearly bought a batch of toilet paper that was imperfectly perforated. It doesn’t tear off the roll where it’s supposed to. Tug away and instead of a clean and easy line, the paper rips and you end up with two squares and one torn, jagged half.

Photo by danilo.alvesd on Unsplash

It’s a small problem. A first world problem if there ever was. And yet, for the first couple days, I thought it was me. Why can’t I tear off the damn toilet paper? What is wrong with me? My toilet paper trauma was yet another symptom of how I was failing. How I was imperfect. Incapable of even the simple task of tearing off neat squares of toilet paper.

It took me a while, but eventually I realized, the problem isn’t me. The problem is the toilet paper. The manufacturer. The difficulty in securing the supplies necessary to make the toilet paper. The inability to hire enough quality control people in the factory. Who knows where the problem started, but it wasn’t with me.

This is the most basic lesson of sociology and yet still hard to absorb (get it?) sometimes. A lot of problems aren’t about you. They’re about larger forces beyond your control. Maybe I’m feeling bloopy because of some failed chemistry in my brain or fucked-up family dynamics in my childhood. Or maybe it’s collective trauma from three years living in a pandemic. Maybe it’s not me, it’s the fucking toilet paper.

There’s comfort in knowing that sometimes it’s not about me. There’s not much I can do about crappy (I can’t stop) toilet paper, just like there’s not much I can do about things like the decline of higher education or inflation. But it helps to know that none of that is my fault, either. At least in those instances, I’m not flawed. The world is. It’s a small comfort so I’m sharing it with you.

It’s okay. Sometimes it’s not you, it’s the toilet paper.