In February,  my husband Carl’s sister and her husband called us from Nevada. They said that the Walmart aisles were empty of toilet paper and other items. We had some toilet paper, but perhaps this Corona Virus – COVID 19  knew more about it than we did.  Maybe everybody was going to have to go more often. No one likes to go without toilet paper.

In the days of using an outhouse, we sometimes used pages of a catalog. or newspaper.  A digital catalog page wouldn’t be much help. So I thought , “Next time I go to the store, I’ll get more toilet paper.”

I woke up on grocery shopping day. This inner voice said, “If you want toilet paper, you’d better go to the store NOW.”

When I got to the Harris Teeter grocery store, I went straight to the toilet paper aisle. A lady in front of me gasped. The aisle was completely empty except for one huge package of 16 mega rolls of Charmin. The lady examined the package and left it there on the shelf all by itself. I couldn’t believe it. I walked over and looked at it. The top was open.

I said to myself, “I’m not proud. I’ll buy it with the top wrapper open. There are four rolls inside, each wrapped securely.”

I didn’t see any harm in purchasing this big package. It was all there was. There was no other toilet paper. I didn’t have a choice. I grabbed it and put it in my buggy.

I bought other items and went to the front check out lanes. There were 12 lanes and each one had three people waiting. I saw the self-service registers had a vacancy, so I went there.

I put the groceries on the scanner one-by-one. When I got to the toilet paper, I lifted the package up and away from the buggy.

Alas and Alack. The four packs of toilet paper fell right through. There was not only a hole in the top; there was an even bigger hole in the bottom of the package.

All four rolls of toilet paper bounced around on the floor. I started laughing. I laughed and laughed as I picked up the packs of toilet paper. I thought, “Thank goodness, they were wrapped in fours. What if there had been 16 individual rolls bouncing around on the floor, going this way and that way.

I put the empty plastic packaging on the scanner so the UPC  label would let the computer know how much to charge me.  I couldn’t stop smiling. Visions of toilet paper rolling all over the store jumped around in my head.

I left the store and couldn’t wait to tell Carl about my toilet paper adventures.

Carl loved it. He called his brother and retold my toilet paper story. (He likes to exaggerate and add to stories to make them more fun to tell.)

In his story, the rolls went here and there and people grabbed my toilet paper as it went down the aisles.  In his story, I had to fight people to get it back. Everyone hollered at the same time. All of us were screaming at the same time.  Sort of like in the movie, Better Off Dead with John Cusack. The boy on the bike says, “Give me my two dollars.” I’m spouting, “Give me my toilet paper.”

Carl’s brother found an out of the way grocery store that let him have four rolls if he promised not to tell anyone where he got it.

When my friend, Linda Gutheil, told her sister that the store didn’t have any toilet paper, she sent her toilet paper as a gift…24 rolls in one package.

When I was sharing with my daughter, Lorrie, that I couldn’t find a good image of an empty aisle for this blog post, she asked her daughter to take a picture for me while she was in Wal-Mart. Thank you, Lorrie for asking Kylie to take a picture for me. Thank you, Kylie for taking the picture of the empty aisle with no toilet paper for me.

If you have a toilet paper story, please share it in the comments. We need more laughter during this time of the 2020 pandemic.

Never Give Up
Joan Y. Edwards, Author
Copyright © 2020 Joan Y. Edwards

Books to help you at home:
Amazon Flip Flap Floodle Will this little duck’s song save him from Mr. Fox?
Amazon or 4RV Publishing Joan’s Elder Care Guide Find solutions to Everyday problems in caring for Grandma and Grandpa!

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