Late last year on my personal Facebook page I asked my friends what etiquette was sorely missing in the world today. Over fifty vehement, ranty suggestions (I had obviously hit a nerve) later, I present
THE TALKING FRANKLY GUIDE TO ETIQUETTE IN THE MODERN WORLD
In no way are these posts endorsed by the likes of June Dally Watkins or any professional royal butlers.
Let’s start at the beginning.
What is etiquette?
Etiquette is defined as “the customary code of polite behaviour in society or among members of a particular profession or group”
You may know this more commonly as ‘How not to be an arse’.
You can see the first post ‘How to RSVP’ by clicking on the word ‘dandelion‘.
This second post on the subject of etiquette addresses the lost art of changing the toilet roll. Now the first question you may ask is “When do I need to change a toilet roll?”
It’s an easy answer. If it looks like either picture below it is empty and needs to be changed. Leaving one sheet on the roll is even more annoying because it means you’ve actually put thought into being an arse rather than just naturally being one.
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| Exhibit A: Clearly Empty |
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| Exhibit B: One sheet counts as empty |
So then you need to remove the strut that holds the empty toilet roll holder and slide off the empty cardboard roll. Best you recycle it, but at worst, drop it on the ground for later. We focussed on changing it here, not your bathroom’s cleanliness factor.
You may need to use two hands
but I was taking pictures with the other
but I was taking pictures with the other
Then you locate a fresh roll of toilet paper. These can often be found on a shelf in the room the toilet is located in, in a box in the laundry or garage, under the bathroom sink or on a stand beside the toilet. In an office environment, spare rolls are often found piled in front of the mirror in the hand washing area or on the hook behind the door.
Wherever they are, the rough size and shape of every roll is as per the picture below and you keep hunting until you find one okay?
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| A roll of toilet paper |
Then, if necessary, you remove the wrapping and slide the full roll of toilet paper back onto the strut and put the strut back in place.
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| Careful, it’s heavy |
Then last but not least, you pull the first piece of paper down so if the next person to use the toilet happens to go in the middle of the night or the light has blown, they don’t need to be fumbling around trying to find the ‘edge’ to unravel the roll and crying with frustration as they think about what kind of monster only does half the job!
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| Over is best but not essential |
It is that simple. The only reason you might NOT change the toilet roll after you use up the last of the paper is if a giant tornado rips through your house/office and tosses you into another country before you have a chance to do so. In which case you better be found with your pants round your ankles and a dazed and confused look otherwise you’ll just be known as that ‘selfish arse who didn’t change the toilet roll’.
And that my friends concludes our second lesson on etiquette in the modern world. It’s not turning out to be that hard now is it????
(PS: Before you ask, it’s not a sponsored post, it’s just the toilet paper we use because social enterprise is good and I’d rather give money to projects like this than Kleenex – even if they don’t use fluffy puppies in their adverts)
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