A brief history of tollet paper Andrew Fischer

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n Andrew Fischer A brief history of toilet paper

After six weeks of the Great Covid-19 Toilet Paper Shortage, I have finally been able to buy a four-roll package. To immortalise the event I offer this essay on the history of the product, starting at the very… well, starting somewhere near the present day.

I remember when I first saw the Charmin Bears on television. I had several questions. First: why in heck were they blue? I suppose some team of Madison Avenue geniuses ran a survey and found that blue bears had the highest positives in their test group of random TP buyers. Or maybe they were just trying to match the blue on the plastic wrapper.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I prefer a more realistic colour of butt-wiping bear. Which leads artfully to the next question: why would anyone imagine that bears could even hawk TP successfully?

Did it hinge on that hoary/ hairy reply to an obvious question: “Does a bear poop in the woods?” I guess the geniasses figured that everyone has heard that expression, therefore everyone must know that a bear does poop in the woods (unlike birds, foxes and weasels), ergo the bear was a solid choice as a TP emissary. Add the tale of Goldilocks’ trio and various cartoon bears, and I guess it was an easy decision….

Question number three: why are these mammals so in love with Charmin TP? Well, it’s soft. Hmm, what exactly are they talking about? Most people I’ve polled don’t use TP on their faces. Charmin’s also more absorbent. No poll-ee would respond to that one.

Also, one Charmin commercial’s voice-over artist states breathlessly that, “no one likes bath tissue that leaves pieces behind!” No comment. In any case, it’s clear that the Bear Family members have an unhealthy fetish going on or have been

smoking the stuff instead of using it as intended.

Onward. According to Wikipedia, the first use of TP was during the 6th-century, when China’s “official scholar” penned the following: “Paper on which there are quotations or commentaries from the Five Classics or the names of sages, I dare not use for toilet purposes”. (Modern research indicates this paper was used for wrapping delicatessen cold cuts.) Later, during the Tang dynasty (618–907 AD), an Arab traveller to China noted: “[The Chinese] do not wash themselves with water when they have done their necessities; they only wipe themselves with paper”. I guess