When I was a kid, my mom told me stories about growing up
on a small farm. She told me that when
she was young, her family had an outhouse behind their residence. She told me that winters really sucked. She told me that they had the Sears “Wish
Book” catalog in the outhouse to use as toilet paper. The anecdote was relevant to me then only because
Sears still sent out the 300-plus page wish book (Montgomery Ward did, too) as
a pre-interweb marketing tool. I freakin loved looking through the wish book
and dreaming about all the stuff I’d put on my Christmas list, but the thought
of wiping my butt with its pages seemed primitive and disgusting, even in the 1960s. Anyway, she said that back then when she was
in the outhouse (it was a one-holer, she said, but some wealthier neighbors had
two-holers, which to me now doesn’t seem like it’d better than a one-holer, I
mean, do you sit next to each other and compare notes, or what? Just saying..) she would tear a page out of the
wish book when it was time, and she’d rub it in her hands until it was warmer and softer and less crinkly and
then she’d, well, you know.
So, I only tell you this tale in order to say I bet my mom
would laugh her ass off at people today fighting at Walmart over toilet paper,
even during a pandemic, or whatever.
