In the past I bemoaned the lack of government oversight for toilet paper roll sizing and the resultant consternation from attempting to determine which is the better deal, the 9 mega-rolls of 438 sheets per roll or the 12 double-rolls of 306 sheets per roll if your coupon covers the mega-roll multipak but not the megapak of double rolls, super soft but not super strong. (If you don’t recall that discussion it may be beneficial to review it here.) You would think the turmoil of the TPS (toilet paper shortage) we experienced at the beginning of the CoViD crisis (heretofore referred to as the CVTPS) would have solidified the need for regulatory intervention. Instead the situation has worsened. Regardez vous:
As they would say in France, sacred blue! Maybe not, what do I know, I haven’t used French since high school when things were neat, people keen, and we said “ah, gee,” a lot. The point is, those tubes are both from rolls of toilet paper, not from the same package, but of the same brand. Same iteration also, double-roll ultra soft, and purchashed from the same store. The difference? One, represented by the longer roll, was part of a 4 roll pack which is plenty for a single person with limited storage space. The other shorter roll is from an all that was available 24 roll pack more likely to go home with a family of 6, somebody looking to fill storage space in the unused corner of the garage, or a single person whose diet is chiefly canned chili and beer, probably home brew.
I wish I could tell you more but I had already discarded the wrapping from the “long roll,” “double roll” is no longer an adequate modifier, and only had both emptied rolls show up side by side because my daughter has a dog and I have a poor memory. I can see some of you are puzzled. Well, you take some small dog treats or bits of kibble, pour them into the tube, crimp or fold the ends, then let the dog puzzle how to get to the treats on his or her own. Yes, it is awkward construction but “they” is plural no matter what which style book says otherwise. Oh, the roll? No that’s not at all awkward. It’s quite fun for the dog and can keep it (the dog) (quite appropriate for animals even if somewhat cold) occupied for from seconds to hours (okay, almost always seconds). However, because the makeshift treat holder is destroyed in the game a constant supply of emptied rolls is necessary once the dog becomes hooked on the fun. As daughter and I each have a diet consisting of all the major food groups, neither of us are buried under a mountain of emptied cardboard tubes. Often I forget to pass along those I have saved and end up with 2 or 3 of them hanging out with my full rolls. There they undoubtedly regale those rolls of unused sheets yet to be wrestled from their plastic encased world of tales of adventures yet to come on their journeys from closet to holder to spinner to… but I digress.
Now armed with this new knowledge, shopping will be even more mentally laborious. No longer is simple arithmetic comparing sheets per roll to rolls per pack to price adequate to determine value in the paper products aisles of the mega marts of the world. Square footage (which I previously wondered why it was included on the package label) has to be considered if one expects to maximize our constantly weakening purchasing power. Now we must be armed with the ability to solve simultaneous equations, something I haven’t done since the advent of multifunction calculators. No longer is shopping math missing from the core curricula of American education. No, now we need … Shopping Calculus!
It doesn’t help that there are no federal guidelines for bathroom tissue roll sizes. Double, triple, giant, mega, mega plus, and super were the adjectives in use in that aisle but even when used by the same brands, the same moniker did not represent the same number (numeral?) of sheets per roll. One package of Mega Rolls boasted 308 sheets per roll while another claimed 348 sheets per roll. Double Rolls had either 148 sheets or 167 sheets. None of that made it easier to figure out if 9 rolls for $9.45 was a better value than 12 rolls for $11.45. New math said “x is greater than y when the intersecting sets represent the lesser value of the total compared to the greater value of the sum of the variable(s) represented by the equation,” but old arithmetic said “Hold on there, Baby Bear. That’s not just right.” (If you are trying to follow along without a program, although everybody used it as a basis for comparison, I never found a roll claiming to be “Regular.” Not a good thing not to be amidst all that toilet paper.)
Later that same day I was at the nursery (the plant kind, not the baby kind), picking out some herbs for my patio garden. Fortunately I only needed 4, or at most 6 plants. Why is that fortunate? Because they were on sale! What were regular price pots of 3.28 each were on sale for “$2.87 each, $24/tray of 8.” Of course someone had three trays in his cart. I hope he was planning on asking them being rung up separately.
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