Musings of the Toilet Paper poor: unintended consequences of the coronavirus

The pandemic rating for the coronavirus and the media hype about it have caused some unintended consequences. Unless, of course, causing a world-wide run and subsequent shortage of toilet paper was the aim of the panic-inducing media coverage. It’s not that I don’t think this is a serious health threat. It obviously is, especially to certain at risk groups. I worry about my 75 year old mother and my immune-compromised best friend. I even understand the preemptive closing of schools and universities.

Step into my life, though, and it gets a little complicated. While I have been homeschooling most of my children for the last twenty years, in the last year we have had two children in public school. And now my university is hinting that all our classes will go to an online format. Which means that I will be homeschooling my home-schooled children, homeschooling my public-schooled children, and yes, homeschooling myself through college. All with ONE computer and pretty iffy internet service. Combined with a serious toilet paper shortage (we have 30 rolls left, which may last us 15 days if we are really, really conservative) and I am in the position of toilet paper monitor and triple school matron. This should be fun.

I understand the need to flatten out the exposure curve, and we are happy to do our part. Over the next two weeks, I will have a nice hiatus from my regular college work, which will give me a grand opportunity to work on a massive semester-long paper. My kids will get to experience the joy of playing outdoors and entertaining themselves with games from our game cabinet while the public-schooled kids take turns using the internet to complete their assignments and I work with the others as usual. I will save a lot of money on gasoline, which I can then spend on groceries because kids at home eat more.

I may even take out the sewing machine again. Many years ago, when I was in the throes of making cloth diapers for environmental and economic savings, I had a brief conversation with the Handy Man where I broached the possibility of joining the home toilet cloth movement. Yes, there was such a movement among diaper-making circles. People had long discussions about the merits of making their own toilet cloths, the proper size of such, and how to properly care for them. (It turns out, they are very similar to cloth diapers that way. Go figure.) The Handy Man didn’t bat an eyelash when forbidding me to introduce such a practice into our home. Cloth diapers he could handle, but cloth toilet paper, he could not, he would not. I still have some diaper cloth in my closet. I had grand notions of selling it. We may be able to survive the toilet paper crisis of 2020…but it may not please everyone in my family.

So, if you are hoarding toilet paper, please think of the Handy Man. I am only too eager to demonstrate the absorbent qualities of homemade toilet cloths, but I am not sure it would be good for our marriage. I have a sneaky suspicion the kids may rebel, too. I hope all of you survive this threat with health intact. And may your toilet-paper never run out.