Let's begin at the weeks before I left Glasgow to come down to Leicester. The time was full of farewells and trying to figure out why I owned so much and how I managed to confine it all to one room in my parents' home. One of my closest friends recently moved out of her home and into a flat in Glasgow as quickly as a snap of someone's fingers when I had been waiting three months to do so, but I digress. When we were out to lunch one day the subject of toilet paper came up, don't ask me why you know how these things just kind of happen. She told me, in the utmost confidence no doubt, that in her flat with three girls, her included, they were going through one toilet roll a day.
She told me they were chronically out of toilet paper and always had to keep buying new ones. I was gobsmacked by this. in my parents home where it's just the three of us we don't go through that much toilet paper, what were those three doing, this?
So i vowed, at the time, that for my friend's birthday this month I would send her some much needed, and no doubt appreciated, toilet paper. This would have been fine if I had been more organised, which I wasn't seeing as I had just moved half way down the country and began a Masters course. What I had to do instead was remove half of the paper from a roll of toilet paper, fold it up and put it in with her card which I was going to send to Glasgow.
I did this on a wet and rainy day; I wrote the card in the post office and addressed the envelope (organised, I know) then put the toilet paper in and sealed it, although it did need some extra sellotape to keep shut. Back in Glasgow, on the few visits I actually made to the post office to send things, the question they always asked me was
"Is there anything valuable inside?"
To which I have always answered no.
Apparently down here in Leicester they ask instead:
"What's in it?"
In hindsight I probably should have lied, said something other than I did, but being the socially awkward person who isn't good on the spot, I told her the truth.
".....toilet paper....."
Once the large pile of toilet paper was in the envelope the bulge was hard to hide and to be honest I still can't think of what else I could have said it was.
Then ensued an awkward exchange of looks; the lady behind the desk obviously thought I belonged in a psychiatric ward and I was still reeling from what she had asked me and the truthful answer I had given. To try and dissipate the situation and explain why a young woman would e sending toilet paper through the post I told her about my friend's unfortunate shortage of toilet paper and although she smiled and nodded I still think she thought I was crazy; she did understand the humour behind it though.
To be honest there is no solid reason why you shouldn't send toilet paper through the post, but if you do just pray that the teller doesn't ask you what is in your parcel/envelope or there is going to be a strange exchange of information and a lot of judgement aimed your way. So to finish this post I will leave you with some excellent advice.
