The Math Of Toilet Paper

Before I get started, please don’t drink bleach to prevent Covid-19. You will seriously injure and possibly kill yourself. Apparently, this has become enough of a thing in Virginia that a poison control center had to issue a warning on the news. Now, I know that the people who read my blog are of above-average intelligence but please make sure that certain of your friends or relatives know this. Oh, you know which friend or relative, we all have one friend or relative that needs to be told this. Just like the moronic knuckleheads eating laundry soap. If you had to explain to a friend or relative why that was a bad idea then you better check on them. Please. Well, unless you are an alien, such as may or may not reside at an Alien Resort, then I don’t know if I am telling you the right thing or not. Sorry. You’ll have to use whatever passes for common sense on your planet, but this is supposed to be common sense on this planet.

Enough of the PSA, now on with the show.

I was at Author Sarah Angleton’s blog, titled, oddly enough, Author Sarah Angleton. She writes books of historical fiction; on her blog, she posts about once a week about historical things, often minor historical events. The article I read this week was a piece about the history of toilet paper called, The Greatest Necessity of the Age! Her numbers vary in a range which, if you use multiple sources you know you will likely get multiple answers, but I’m going to use her higher-end figure of 100 rolls per person per year. This is a hard number to define because of the wide variety of rolls and roll sizes that there are and the many different needs people may have. I think 100 is fair because a lot of times we use it for our noses as well. I did the math differently, but, as has been seen in a previous post, math is not my strong suit. Since this is my blog I will use my math. When I did a little bit of the math in my head, I realized that we have 5 people in our house along with one person who is here every other week and a little kid my daughter watches every day.

If we use the 100 rolls per year figure, which allows for blowing your nose and in case of illness, then divide by 12 months in a year, we come down to a month’s supply being a little over 8 rolls. If I figure on all eight people being here all month long then 8 X 8 = a maximum of 64 rolls I would need if I were to buy a month’s supply. So why are people hoarding it? I think some people were expecting they could sell it on eBay or Amazon, but since those venues are not allowing this anymore what do you plan to do with your decade’s worth of toilet tissue?