primitives complain about price of bathroom tissue

[franksolich]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1731385

Oh my.

It's pretty dull on Skins's island today.

I'm looking for something else, and came across this, from September 2007.

JFN1  Donating Member  (876 posts) Tue Sep-04-07 03:38 PM
Original message

Toilet Paper: As Precious As Gold
   
So my wife and I were at Kmart today, stocking up on household items - cleaners, detergents, toilet paper and paper towels, sos pads, etc. We got to the checkout, paid the $67 for our stuff, and left.

As we were driving home, my wife was perusing the receipt. "Hmmm..." she said a couple of times, indicating i should take an interest in her thoughts, which I did. She said, "I couldn't figure out why it cost so much today. Then I saw how much our toilet paper was." She shook the receipt and looked at me. "Do you know how much it cost?"

I don't usually pay attention to these things, as my wife runs our day-to-day finances - I get an "allowance," and I'm quite happy with the arrangement - I don't have the headaches.

So I gave my typical answer, "I don't know - five bucks?" which seemed reasonable to me for a 12-pack of toilet paper.

"Nope," she replied, "Try $12.99."

"Thirteen bucks? For toilet paper?"

"Yup."

"Over a dollar a roll. For toilet paper. Not even the fancy stuff."

"Uh-huh."

We rode the rest of the way home in silence, both of us seething.

Toilet paper is, apparently as precious as gold.

When I think about what this signifies, I don't get as angry about it as I thought I would - I find I am more fatigued.

I AM FATIGUED BECAUSE I AM SO VERY TIRED OF BEING USED TO MAKE OBSCENELY RICH PEOPLE EVEN RICHER.

WFT? More than a dollar a roll for toilet paper?

I looked over the receipt myself, after we got home, and found myself wishing I had paid more attention to this, for the prices we are paying for everyday household items that used to cost us pennies and now cost us ridiculous amounts of money - it's, gods, it's ****ing insane!!!!

The worst part for me, is I never noticed the transition from reasonable, to outright thievery.

Where is this going to lead? HOW MUCH PROFIT IS ENOUGH ****ING PROFIT????????????

Uncle Joe  (1000+ posts) Tue Sep-04-07 03:47 PM
Response to Reply #1

5. My dear deceased grandmother, used to tell a story of accidentally using Poison Ivy leaves when she was a little girl. The lesson of this story is, when global warming really hits the fan and toilet paper is going for ten bucks a roll, know your leaves in case of an emergency.

Warpy  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Tue Sep-04-07 04:42 PM
Response to Reply #5

30. Everything out here has spines and/or poison
   
I have a feeling it's going to be a plastic squeeze bottle full of water for #1 and a rag for #2.

We'll have plenty of rags as the shoddy clothing from China decomposes.

Why would one need anything at all for #1?

rox63  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Tue Sep-04-07 03:42 PM
Response to Original message

2. We pay about $6.99 for a 12 pack of the store brand around here
   
$12.99 seems awfully high.

OrangeCountyDemocrat  (1000+ posts) Tue Sep-04-07 03:44 PM
Response to Original message

3. Why Don't You Go To Costco?
   
I'm guessing that Costco would have been $10 or less.

When buying in quantity that large, i.e. 12 rolls, a place like Costco is your best bet.

Otherwise, use coupons. Keep in mind that stores inflate their prices to compensate for "Double Coupons," so by not using them, or sticking with a particular brand every time, you're paying a premium.

JFN1  Donating Member  (876 posts) Tue Sep-04-07 03:54 PM
Response to Reply #3

10. We live in a rural area
   
So we don't really have coupons and such available to us - no one does double coupons, we buy our meat from a local farmer, we buy our vegetables, for the most part, from farmers, and our staples from the local grocer. We always pick up the flier at Kmart, to look for bargains. But the store itself is pretty small, so there isn't much selection, and there isn't much else around here for shopping, and we'd have to drive about 45 miles to a bigger town to look for bargains, which would eat in gas anything I managed to save, plus it's not very green, one reason we do our shopping locally.

And all of this is really beside the point for me. The Dow is over 13,000, profits are at record levels for corporations - and part of the reason for that is because shlubs like me are more or less forced to pay $13 for toilet paper.

JulieRB  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Tue Sep-04-07 04:28 PM
Response to Reply #3

24. Believe it or not, Costco is not the cheapest
   
We don't shop there as much as we used to because some stuff is just not cheaper.

The TP: If I get a good sale at a local grocery store, I can get a case of TP (the good stuff) for $5-7.00. By the time I've wandered through Costco and chucked stuff in the cart, seriously, it's not cheaper.

LiberalEsto  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Tue Sep-04-07 04:56 PM
Response to Reply #3

35. 36 rolls, about $18

pnwmom  (1000+ posts) Tue Sep-04-07 05:23 PM
Response to Reply #3

37. We've been told not to use the Costco stuff in our septic system, unfortunately.

BattyDem  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Tue Sep-04-07 03:47 PM
Response to Original message

6. Paper towels are overpriced, too
   
It's outrageous what they charge for disposable paper products!

We buy all our paper products in Costco. For $15, we get 36 giant rolls (equivalent to 75 regular rolls) of Charmin. It costs about the same for a Bounty 12 mega-roll pack (equivalent to 20 regular rolls). The Kirkland (Costco) brands are even cheaper and they're just as good.

TechBear_Seattle  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Tue Sep-04-07 04:29 PM
Response to Reply #6

25. I refuse to use
   
Disposeable paper towels, plates, cups, etc. (I do use toilet paper, sorry.) It is just as easy to wash reuseable stuff.

BattyDem  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Tue Sep-04-07 05:31 PM
Response to Reply #25

41. We don't use plates and cups, but there's no substitute for ...
   
toilet paper or tissues. We always try to use a cloth towel instead of paper, but sometimes (like when the dog has an accident) we have to use paper towels.

chimpsrsmarter  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Tue Sep-04-07 03:50 PM
Response to Original message

8. is it vellum? Where the hell do you shop?
   
i bought tp yesterday, 6 frigging enormous roll of Charmin for $7.00. Biggest non commercial sized rolls of tp i've ever seen.

angstlessk  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Tue Sep-04-07 03:52 PM
Response to Original message

9. I consider all paper products as simply 'pre garbage' products and purchase only the cheapest always! the toilet paper we now purchase disolves in water...if your hands are wet then dispensing the paper..it comes apart...the BEST is the cheapest! Who wants toilet paper to survive after its initial use?

kestrel91316  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Tue Sep-04-07 03:55 PM
Response to Original message

11. kestrel's solution if the problem gets much worse: flannel wipies.
   
http://www.grizzlybird.net/2006/05/natural-homemade-dia...

I see no reason why non-babies couldn't use these handy little washables. For advanced, highly committed environmentalists.

Oh, and I do most of my cleaning around the house with CLOTH cleaning cloths, not paper towels. It's environmentalism 101.

It's a pretty big bonfire.

Reciprocity  (1000+ posts) Tue Sep-04-07 04:27 PM
Response to Original message

23. Did you know?
   
What did people use before toilet paper was invented? <<

*Newsprint, paper catalogue pages in early US

*Hayballs, Scraper/gompf stick kept in container by the privy in the Middle Ages

*Discarded sheep's wool in the Viking Age, England

*Frayed end of an old anchor cable was used by sailing crews from Spain and Portugal

*Medieval Europe- Straw, hay, grass, gompf stick

*Corn cobs, Sears Roebuck catalog, mussel shell, newspaper, leaves, sand- United States

*Water and your left hand, India

*Pages from a book, British Lords

*Coconut shells in early Hawaii

*Lace was used by French Royalty

*Public Restrooms in Ancient Rome- A sponge soaked in salt water, on the end of a stick

*The Wealthy in Ancient Rome-Wool and Rosewater

*French Royalty-lace, hemp

*Hemp & wool were used by the elite citizens of the world

*Defecating in the river was very common internationally

*Bidet, France

*Snow and Tundra Moss were used by early Eskimos

You know, I don't know.  Bathroom tissue's never been a big issue with me.

I buy one of those single rolls of Scott's bathroom tissue, the kind that's wrapped in some sort of flimsy paper; a single roll that's a little bit larger than what one usually finds in a roll in regular 4-packs.

That lasts me something a little more than a month, perhaps five weeks.  Maybe even six weeks.

Really.  Of course, this is a one-person household.

The primitives have two things going on, that franksolich doesn't.  The first is that the primitives usually are bowel-obsessive, and perhaps sit on the commode far more than is healthy, and the second is that the primitives tend to chow down, pig down, on foods that encourage the creation of rapidly flowing brown stuff.

The primitives could cut down considerably on their bathroom tissue expenses if they sat on the commode only when necessary (usually, about once every three days), and ceased eating food that's bad for them.

[delilahmused]

I buy Charmin at Walmart and don't pay that much for it...$8 to $10 (depending upon whether the price has been rolled back) for a double roll 12-pack. No way they're NOT buying a name brand at those prices.

Cindie

[Chris_]

The New York Times is only $7 a week.  Lots of paper there.  It doesn't flush very well, though.

I actually heard some liberal say that the government should pay for our toilet paper because it was a "neccessity".  He made a speech out of it.

[MrsSmith]

One MALE person household, frank.  I buy the AngelSoft double rolls because they are the biggest rolls for the smallest price...about $8 per 12 double-roll pack.  With all 5 daughters home, we can go through the whole thing in a weekend.   

[Chris_]

I use single-ply.  No way Big Paper is going to run MY life.   

[franksolich]

One MALE person household, frank.  I buy the AngelSoft double rolls because they are the biggest rolls for the smallest price...about $8 per 12 double-roll pack.  With all 5 daughters home, we can go through the whole thing in a weekend.   

That used to get me, when I was manager of a privately-owned student union.

Bathroom tissue came in big round rolls.

One time I calculated that one big round roll in the men's room would last a week (there were circa 8-11,000 people going through the building every day), but that the women's restroom consumed something like 5.25 MILES of the stuff in the same seven days.

Damn.

[Ree]

 
I'm still laughin.....

[Zeus]

If y'all weren't so full of shit you wouldn't need so much butt wipe. 

[MrsSmith]

One MALE person household, frank.  I buy the AngelSoft double rolls because they are the biggest rolls for the smallest price...about $8 per 12 double-roll pack.  With all 5 daughters home, we can go through the whole thing in a weekend.   

That used to get me, when I was manager of a privately-owned student union.

Bathroom tissue came in big round rolls.

One time I calculated that one big round roll in the men's room would last a week (there were circa 8-11,000 people going through the building every day), but that the women's restroom consumed something like 5.25 MILES of the stuff in the same seven days.
Damn.

I have no doubt of that.   

[DixieBelle]

Had to be triple rolls if they were $12 for a dozen. Of course DUmmies lie.

It's only $7 at Target for the name brand stuff.

[BannedFromDU]

Leave it to a DUmmy to SEETHE over the price of wiping their behind.

I can see it now:

Brownfingers  (1000+ posts)       Tue Aug-12-09 06:23 PM
Original message
1. I Gave Up Today

Today is the final straw - I have decided to fight back against the McSame* Gang by boycotting toilet paper. Ever since he took office, the toilet paper lobby has had unfettered access to the Oval Office, probably bringing fluffy rolls of TP with them so McThuselah can wipe his raisin cheeks in style.

No more. I. Am. Fighting. Back.

After rent, car payment, insurance, food, high speed internet charges, DU donations, and gasoline, I barely have enough money left over for things like lesbian film festivals and fair trade organic vegan chocolate soyshakes. I'm damned if I'm going to join all the sheeple who insist on wiping their asses after every bowel movement. Sorry, RWers, but this is one Dem you can't push around with your expectations of clean asses.

Who's with me?

[franksolich]

I'm still laughin.....

You know, I had a really bad time with the sanitary facilities in the socialist paradises of the workers and peasants.

The first time I saw the interior of a socialist toilet, I screamed, "NO WAY.  NO ****ING WAY.  NO WAY.  THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS!  THIS IS BEASTLY!  NO WAY.  NO ****ING WAY.  OUTRAGEOUS!"

It was a good thing no one understood English; it was the very best sanitary facility around, and they all were proud of it.  Perhaps they thought I was impressed, or at least I hope so.

I have no idea how the Hell I managed it, but I spent more than two years without once using socialist facilities; always managing to hold it in until I reached porcelain waterworks somewhere.  I suspect the secret to my success was my lifelong philosophy, "If you don't want it to come out, don't put it in, in the first place."

Because of the language barrier, Russians, Ukrainians, Moldovans, and Belarussians had to do what I do in real life; watch, rather than listen.  It was frequently commented I had superhuman intestines.  The longest I went without any of this sitting-down business was eight days, a fact which my "interpreter" blabbed all over a town of 10,000, after which I was constantly stared at and admired.

Towards the end, it was not comfortable, but I managed.

I did that by following my lifelong philosophy, "If you don't want it to come out, don't put it in, in the first place."

This phenomenon was first noticed when I was a little lad, and the family took camping trips.  From home in central Nebraska, all the way through Iowa and Minnesota and Wisconsin and Michigan and Ontario and Quebec and New York, down to northeastern Pennsylvania, I steadfastly refused to use sanitary facilities for any of the sitting-down business.  I always managed to hold it in for several days, until reaching my grandmother's house.

And then on the trip back, through Pennsylvania and Ohio and Indiana and Illinois and Iowa halfway through Nebraska, I always managed to hold it in for several days, until reaching our home again.

If one doesn't want it to come out, don't put it in, in the first place.

 

[MrsSmith]

Leave it to a DUmmy to SEETHE over the price of wiping their behind.

I can see it now:

Brownfingers  (1000+ posts)       Tue Aug-12-09 06:23 PM
Original message
1. I Gave Up Today

Today is the final straw - I have decided to fight back against the McSame* Gang by boycotting toilet paper. Ever since he took office, the toilet paper lobby has had unfettered access to the Oval Office, probably bringing fluffy rolls of TP with them so McThuselah can wipe his raisin cheeks in style.

No more. I. Am. Fighting. Back.

After rent, car payment, insurance, food, high speed internet charges, DU donations, and gasoline, I barely have enough money left over for things like lesbian film festivals and fair trade organic vegan chocolate soyshakes. I'm damned if I'm going to join all the sheeple who insist on wiping their asses after every bowel movement. Sorry, RWers, but this is one Dem you can't push around with your expectations of clean asses.

Who's with me?

 

[Carl]

You know what...I will give a shit   about their whines and fusses about how much things cost the day they even try to figure out how much it costs to produce them.

Somehow they think every want and need in life was set aside for them in a big room with each ones name on it and if not for evil people keeping them from getting it life would be happy.

There are several or I should say were several paper mills along the Battenkill river in my area that made toilet paper.
They are all out of business now thanks to NY regulations and taxes along with the fact that it is very hard to pay for the machines,buildings and everything else to produce a roll of TP that will sell retail for a dollar.
The factory producing it at that point can`t be making more then a few cents/roll.

[MrsSmith]

If they're really desperate...my family in Europe didn't purchase toilet paper.  They had neatly cut sheets from magazines, newspapers, etc, in a nice wooden holder in the bathroom.  While you sat, you crinkled, wrinkled and rubbed one (or more) of them into absorbability, and discarded them into the trash after use.  The trash went out at least once a day.  It worked perfectly well without the expense...just a little extra labor.  

[Happy Fun Ball]

You know, when I saw this topic on the front page, all it said was "Re: primitives complain ...". Of course, you could fill in the blank with anything.

Anything at all.

Yes, even toilet paper.

[Chris_]

You know what...I will give a shit about their whines and fusses about how much things cost the day they even try to figure out how much it costs to produce them.

Somehow they think every want and need in life was set aside for them in a big room with each ones name on it and if not for evil people keeping them from getting it life would be happy.

I already gave you a hi-five this hour.  I'm going to have to start keeping track of them.

[BEG]

If they used the one square max that Sheryl Crow told them to use, that toilet paper could last them for months.

[Chris_]

Asswipes complaining about the price of asswipes.

[BlueStateSaint]

Asswipes complaining about the price of asswipes.

 

H5!

[JohnnyReb]

Reminds me of a bumper sticker I saw on a pulpwooders truck.....

"SAVE THE TREES"
"wipe with plastic"

[USA4ME]

angstlessk

I consider all paper products as simply 'pre garbage' products and purchase only the cheapest always! the toilet paper we now purchase disolves in water...if your hands are wet then dispensing the paper..it comes apart...the BEST is the cheapest! Who wants toilet paper to survive after its initial use?

I could have gone all day without having read that.

.

[Chris_]

Asswipes complaining about the price of asswipes.

 

H5!

returned lol.