Comforts

One of my first world problems includes choosing the right toilet paper. After a long learning curve in the UK I’ve found the ones we prefer (you can’t rely on just one kind as it might be sold out when you’ve run out at home or they’ve decided to change the stock in your local shop). Now on holiday in Estonia I am back in the beginning of the curve and staring at the shelves stacked with different brand rolls: thick and soft, recycled, luxurious, gentle, just comfort, or either aloe vera or camomile or orchid (which plant is the best for your bottom? Best to touch or best to smell?)

I know it’s a petty matter which toilet tissue to use, especially as until I was six, I grew up wiping my bum with a scrunched up newspaper (scrunching makes it slightly softer) that my parents had cut or teared up into equal size pieces and left to the toilet tissue holder (it looked a bit like a miniature newspaper holder). I can’t remember anymore if we took the pieces of printed paper with us every single time we entered the premises and stuck the remainders into the pocket or left the pieces there for the next visitor. The latter seems unlikely though as we shared our toilet, located in a hall outside of our flat, with other two apartments on the same floor. That also meant that you couldn’t stay in there for ages, start reading cut up news stories and put them together as a jigsaw, because your neighbour might have needed a loo too. So when I went to do number two, my parents or grandparents used to call me for ‘encouragement’: “Kaka ruttu, karu tuleb!” (“Poop quickly, the bear’s coming!”).

Nowadays I like taking time in the toilet and finish the not-cut-up-newspaper article I’ve started and get frustrated if my children begin asking (irrelevant) questions when I’m in the middle of the article or decide to tell on each other. Can’t they just sort out their problems themselves without interrupting my quiet toilet time (read: newspaper reading time)! I guess my frustration shows that I’ve started to take the comforts of our loo for granted and maybe don’t appreciate it enough. I’m not sure if I should feel bad about not thanking the toilet on every visit, maybe this should be a norm to have such a place and paper to soothe the bottom, and not leave black print marks, but I do feel slightly ashamed when I find myself criticising on the softness and texture of the toilet paper or the cleanliness of the public toilets. 

Although public toilets are a very different matter, because once it was normal for me to use a squat toilet in Soviet Estonia where there were just stone walls or panels between these holes on the floors. No doors! No need to make sure if anyone is using it by trying to open the door (despite of the red sign on the lock telling that someone is in there and locked the door. Yes, rattling the door handle might help you to hurry up the person inside, as shouting to a stranger in England to sh*t quick as the bear is on its way, might not be convincing, because there just aren’t any bears living there… Not that telling to poop faster would be awkward at all). Anyway as there weren’t any doors in certain public toilets, you could just see yourself which were occupied. Simple as that! But I’m not going to get into detail of these squat toilets’ cleanliness and the squelching floors…

And additionally on the same note I am glad that I also do not have to take trips to the outside dry toilets (as for example there wasn’t a loo inside my grandparents' farm house), neither squat on a metal bucket at night time to avoid that trip. I am very thankful for the development of the toilets and pleased to take the enjoyment, also frustration, when choosing the right toilet rolls!