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Soggy Sojurn!
Before I begin this my next rant I must first explain that I was brought up in a very strict household with post (just) Edwardian standards. The taking of reading materials into the smallest room in the house would have been considered morally reprehensible at best and a whipping offence at worst. Depending upon whether the offending literature was penned by Charles Dickens or Hugh Hefner (my grandfather couldn’t stand Dickens!).
My sojourns in this little room over the years have thus been a very private and solitary affair with just me and my thoughts. Imagine my surprise then when excitedly anticipating the undisputed thrill of pulling the last sheet from the loo roll I am presented with not just the printed word but descriptive illustration to reinforce the message of that text!
Yes! Printed around that innocuous little cardboard tube were words and pictures. Or at least the same picture many times. Dismissing fears that I might have been set up and even at that moment was now appearing with my Y Fronts around my ankles live on some appalling reality TV show I began to read.
In six languages no less I was enlightened by instructions that “You can flush me down the toilet.” Further qualification to this earth shattering revelation was provided by the word ‘Biodegradable’ in bold letters repeated liberally all around the tube.
Struth! What were the other sort then? The ones I’ve been gleefully flushing down the loo for the past sixty odd years! If they weren’t biodegradable too then where the hell are they all now? Are they all heaped up in a great floating raft in the Sargasso Sea? A treachorous hazard to navigation somewhere between the Tesco Carrier Bag Islands and the Great Pampers Reef. Will they still be able to glean finger prints from soggy but resilient ocean traversing two-ply cardboard? Can they be seen from Space? Could I be traced? Will I be gaoled for life?
I really, really could do without this added stress during an already ‘unmentionable’ but necessary bodily function, even for an Edwardian. As I prepare to leave the Autumn of my life into a possibly short winter I don’t envy the youth of today. The last thing I would want is for edicts to start accompanying me in the smallest room.
I've finished (can't say) now.
For the day anyway.
