We currently have single ply toilet paper in our master bathroom. If you’re not familiar with single ply toilet paper, you likely haven’t ever been to prison or a Chevron gas station, so allow me to explain: single ply toilet paper is what they give you in prison, or Chevron gas stations off the I-5 with 47 etched/sharpie’d cock-and-balls on the stall walls. And, we currently have THAT toilet paper in our master bathroom. By choice.

The worst thing about it all? It’s my fault.

Walking out the door one hapless day to get lightbulbs for the building, the Ho yells after me “grab some TP.” So, I’m there at the CVS, which is the closest store near us that carried the particular bulb that I need, and I’m standing in their paper products aisle thinking to myself…”holy shit, toilet paper is expensive here.” So, I grabbed what was the cheapest option…which four rolls for $7.99 definitely does NOT count as objectively “cheap” in my opinion…not even considering that it could be prison-grade. I mean, I didn’t even know they SOLD prison-grade toilet paper to the masses.

It’s rather impressive, actually, this single ply toilet paper. It’s alternately so unbelievably thin that it fails to retain hardly any moisture, you can see THROUGH it, in fact , if you hold it up…while also being so rough and unpleasant that it feels like shredded cardboard. I mean, that’s like a contradiction in physics. What else is fragile and hard at the same time?

Oh, and of course it came in a nice colorful shiny package, belying its hidden cheapness. I should write a letter. That’s some false advertising bullshit right there. Imagine my surprise when I open it the other morning, expecting the usual fluffy poo-pillow-with-aloe to come plopping out and find this vaguely gray abomination instead. There was confusion, then hurt, then a rising fury.

But, the kicker, guys? The cherry on top of the fudge sundae?

We had toilet paper. The good stuff. Reams of it from Costco. Down in our storage room. Liz thought I was going to go “get lightbulbs” from the storage room. Even worse, I was *with* her when we bought that massive block of 10,000 pillowy, dreamy rolls of toilet paper a short time earlier. I just didn’t even think about it.

So now, out of spite, I’m chafing my butthole and sometimes my nose (allergies be cray, am I right?) with cardboard TP because we are going to USE that fucking prison-shit toilet paper goddamnit! $7.99 will not be wasted on my watch!

This is where stupidity leads, young ones. Let me be a cautionary tale. Toilet paper is serious business.