Consider toilet paper. Should you hang the toilet paper roll over or under? Lots of people do it their way and I do it the correct way, which I will expound upon below.
The “over or under” question has plagued marriages, roommates, and casual acquaintances for over 100 years; both sides are convinced they have the soundest reasoning for putting their toilet paper loose end out or loose end under. But, contrary to the wishy-squishy belief that “if that’s what you believe, it’s ‘right’ for you,” there is actually a correct way to hang toilet paper according to health experts, as well as the man who invented the toilet paper roll in the first place.
Let’s start with hygiene. Dr. Christian Moro, associate professor of health sciences and medicine at Bond University on Australia’s Gold Coast, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation: “One key to maintaining a hygienic washroom is minimizing contact between people and surfaces.” By hanging the roll so the loose end lays over the top the paper hangs away from the wall. The good doctor continues, “Depending on the type of roll holder, this often lowers the chance that a user will touch the wall behind when fishing for paper, leaving germs behind on that surface which can be spread to the next user.” Has anyone else noticed the irony that a doctor from the land down under recommends over?
Touching any surface in a bathroom is fraught with genuine peril, according to a study from the University of Colorado. They identified 19 groups of bacteria on the doors, floors, faucet handles, soap dispensers, and toilets of 12 public bathrooms in Colorado – six men’s and six women’s – and many of the bacteria strains identified could be transmitted just by touching these surfaces. Reading things like that makes me just want to stay home all day and wrap myself in cellophane.
I mean, so you’re out at the big game, or a movie, or that restaurant with the really good salsa, and you have to “go,” so it’s off to the bathroom (which, curiously, doesn’t have a bathtub) where some thoughtless employee, trying to kill you, has hung the toilet paper roll in the under configuration. You have to fish for the loose end, scraping your fingers on the wall in the process. In addition to whatever might be on that wall already (the aforementioned study points out the germs released into the surrounding area by the act of flushing an uncovered toilet bowl), take a moment to think about the “twipers” – people who wipe twice, once to do the job, and another time for good measure. As they grab for that second sheet from the roll, they are, potentially but probably, transferring fresh fecal matter from their first pass to the wall, which then gets picked up by the next person who inadvertently touches that wall when trying to grab their sheet. Public bathrooms are a minefield; I NEVER use them – partly because it’s not a good idea to let my severely damaged immune system marinate in their petri dish-like ambience, and partly because as a person with a disability I find them hard to negotiate, even with a stall for the disabled.
If the hellscape I’ve painted for you hasn’t convinced you that over is right, perhaps this will.
That is the original submission to the US Patent Office in 1891 for the toilet paper roll by a man named Seth Wheeler. It clearly shows the toilet paper as it was intended, from its inception, to be presented to users: in the over configuration.
One possible exception is known as the “cat conundrum,” which posits that felines are fond of pawing at the toilet roll, which, if it is in the correct over configuration, then ends up unraveled and all over the floor, whereas presenting it in the under configuration prevents this and the roll just goes round and round. I do not accept this. If you encounter this problem, don’t hang your toilet roll incorrectly, get rid of your cat.
Research has shown that cats are selfish, unfeeling, environmentally devastating creatures – see this article at Vox for the details. A 2012 article at the Atlantic describes how a parasite often found in cat feces, known as Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii or Toxo for short), causes toxoplasmosis and can change people’s personalities over time, increasing rates of neuroticism, schizophrenia, and even suicide. Toxoplasma gondii is the reason pregnant women are told to avoid cats’ litter boxes; since the 1920s, doctors have recognized that a woman who becomes infected during pregnancy can transmit the disease to the fetus, in some cases resulting in severe brain damage or death. Getting rid of your cat is probably the best thing you can do for yourself health wise, next to quitting smoking. It also solves the toilet paper cat conundrum.
Good. Well that’s sorted. Now you can move on to the next pressing question: how often should you wash your bed linens?