Wiping Away The Memories

When I was small we didn't have big rolls of soft strong toilet paper in delicate pastel shades. No. We had it tough. We had to use things like Izal medicated paper, which came in little separate sheets of hard wax like parchment which came folded and intertwined from a little box. This paper was dry, shiny and very uncomfortable to use; it never wiped properly and it never absorbed any thing at all. I wonder why we used it, it never did the job. And why “medicated”. What was it medicated with? Tranquillisers? Sedatives? Laxatives?

My parents had a holder screwed to the toilet wall in which they inserted a box of Izal toilet paper and I was taught to dutifully to take a sheet out each time I entered the little room and sit on the toilet, clutching the sheet in my hand while I strutted my stuff, and then use it to clean myself. I was around two years old and considered this good fun, I was acting like adults do.

One day I entered the hallowed room and when going to take my sheet noticed that the box was empty. I shouted to my dad:

“Dad, the toilet paper box is empty, can I have some more?”. He shouted up the stairs:

“OK Sarah, I'll bring some up”, and he threw me in a box from the stairs and disappeared.

So now I had one full box and one empty holder; I had to transfer the sheets from the full box to the holder. How was I supposed to do this? Was It difficult? It was a big puzzle. I applied myself to the task. I took out the first sheet from the full box and stuffed it into the empty holder. It fitted in. So far, so good. I took out the second sheet and stuffed it in after the first sheet. Great, this worked. So I carried on with the process and got about half the sheets into the wall holder. This had now reached full volume and there was no room to put the rest in from the box. So how do they do it? How do Mum and Dad get a whole box of paper every time into the holder. I had no idea so I called down:

“Dad, can you show me how to put the rest of the paper in, it won't fit!”

He ran up the stairs and saw me sitting on the floor looking puzzled surrounded with sheets of Izal, and some hanging out of the holder. He looked puzzled too and then burst out laughing.

“No, I will show you how to do it”, he said as he lifted the sort-of empty box out of the holder with sheets flying everywhere; and then he swiftly and competently slotted the half empty box into the now empty cavity. Oh, so that's how you do it. It was so simple, why couldn't I have done it.

“Oh!” I said quietly in return. This story was told around the family Sunday Tea table for many months after, and everyone had a good laugh.