What You Never Knew About Toilet Paper
By M.-L.
@MALUSE (69373)
Germany
March 14, 2016 4:07pm CST
I've just read a discussion by @cindiowens on the disappearance of coloured toilet paper. I was surprised that she put this 'in the past'. Well, of course, everything that doesn't exist any more belongs to the past. Yet, I had expected a story set in the days of yore. Coloured toilet paper may have disappeared but it definitely belongs to the present for me. I'll tell you why. After reading about my experience you may think that I'm a member of the Flintstone family and grew up shortly after the dinosaurs became extinct.
I grew up in the GDR (German Democratic Republic) in the years after the end of WW2. Shortage and paucity in *everything* were the terms describing the time. Toilet paper? Sheer luxury. If there was some in the shops, it was grey and of sandpaper quality. It wasn't perforated well and one had problems tearing off the amount one needed.
If there was none - which was the case more often than not - one used newspapers. Not just a page, oh no, one had to be economical. A page was cut into small rectangles. These were put on a pile and a hole was bored into one corner. Then the sheets were put on a nail in the wall of the toilet. Voilà!
From the time onwards a person could read this could be agony. If one had to have a longer session, one started to read the text on the sheets, of course. Rarely did one find the whole text of an article on the sheets hanging under the one where it began! Can it be seen as a kind of compensation that one had parts of the text 'tattooed' on one's behind? The torture didn't last too long, however, because most houses had toilets on the landings of staircases. I can't find the correct term for them. Were they pit latrines? Or privies? Whatever is the correct term, these toilets had no running water. You can imagine (or maybe you can't) how stinky, uncomfortable and cold they were, especially in winter.
Is it possible that these memories are the reason why I now always buy soft toilet paper with four layers? Who knows.
Some years ago we had a Russian language assistant in our house. She lives in Ulan-Ude, a city on Lake Baikal in Siberia. I don't know if that is the explanation for the fact that I saw a roll of toilet paper of the grey, sandpaper variety in her room. This was a long time after the end of the Soviet Union. It told me that obviously all the people in the Socialist Eastern Bloc 'enjoyed' this kind of toilet paper and that a Siberian functionary managed to put so many rolls aside that the supply has lasted longer than the Soviet Union and is still sold when decadent capitalist toilet paper can be got.
Have you ever thought what people used to clean their behinds before the Brits founded the British Perforated Paper Company in 1880? I may tell you about this another time.
51 people like this
51 responses
@ElizabethWallace (12074)
• United States
14 Mar 16
When reading about my ancestors who lived many hundreds of years ago, I think about such things. It must have been hell.
7 people like this
@ElizabethWallace (12074)
• United States
7 Apr 16
@Fleura Mine started coming overseas in the late 1500s. Some went to Quebec and the rest went to what is now Virginia. They pre-dated the Mayflower in some cases. One was on it.
5 people like this
@garymarsh6 (23404)
• United Kingdom
15 Mar 16
The most awful toilet paper was used in schools. It was shiny on one side and rough on the other. It was horrible to use. The shiny side would do nothing and the rough side was like using sandpaper!
4 people like this
@garymarsh6 (23404)
• United Kingdom
12 Jun 18
@vandana7 You obviously missed such joy! The toilet paper was called IZAL and was medicated I think it is still on sale to this day can you believe although they have stopped producing it. . I can not imagine many people buying it unless they want to reminisce about it let alone use it.
2 people like this
@pgntwo (22408)
• Derry, Northern Ireland
15 Mar 16
@MALUSE No problem. I enjoyed the post, most entertaining.
I experienced a modern Plumpsklo, or earth closet or outhouse at a farmhouse in a village not too far from Trier one winter. One had a handful of wood shavings to throw down after business had been completed, the drop was a goood 8m. Gentlemen were encouraged to empty their bladder against any of the trees at the edge of the nearby forest - nippy with deep snow all around!
@Aquitaine24 (11813)
• San Jose, California
14 Mar 19
@pgntwo So this was a composting toilet?
1 person likes this
@MALUSE (69373)
• Germany
12 Jun 18
@vandana7 kvetch (v.)
"to complain, whine," 1953, from Yiddish kvetshn, literally "squeeze, press," from German quetsche "crusher, presser." As a noun, from 1936 as a term of abuse for a person.
I don't know Yiddish. Occasionally, I can understand a bit because it is related to German.
American English has many Yiddish words because many Jews emigrated to the USA. Yiddish was the language of the Jews from Eastern Europe.
3 people like this
@allen0187 (58582)
• Philippines
21 Mar 16
Wow! Newspaper? I guess with the sub-par quality of news around, some newspapers are better off for wiping one's behind!!!
LOL!
2 people like this
@LadyDuck (471217)
• Switzerland
21 Mar 16
I missed this interesting post. I also buy soft toilet paper with four layers. I remember in Italy, when I was a young girl, that in the countryside many houses had outside toilets and I still remember the newspaper hanging on a nail on the wall. This is something I do not regret about the past.
2 people like this
@vandana7 (100193)
• India
12 Jun 18
@LadyDuck Sigh..then I do not have good genes...my plan is restricted to 75-80. I hope I will be gone by then. Somebody forecasted I will die when I am 74 and a half and the dates were 25th December or 1st January. Now he said you are born for a specific purpose. You will die on 25th December if you complete the objective or latest by 1st January if you don't complete the job by 25th December. You know what? It felt good for a while. I mean, I thought wow, my cousins not gonna trouble me, till it occurred to me that they might imprison me, and objective could be as bad as killing them.
2 people like this
@LadyDuck (471217)
• Switzerland
12 Jun 18
@vandana7 I do not know if you have better genes, my great grandmother had an outside toilet, they surely used newspapers (and not toilet paper), she had 18 children (YES 18!) no one in the hospital, all at home. She lived until the age of 98. I think that my mom family has very good genes.
2 people like this
@Tampa_girl7 (50168)
• United States
16 Mar 16
I have heard of people using catalog pages and corn cobs too.
2 people like this
@Inlemay (17713)
• South Africa
5 Apr 16
I might not want to know what was used to clean ones behind with before the BRITISH perforated paper company was established - but I know that coloured toilet paper can give infections and my doctor told me when it became a fashion - Not to buy it at all. So white has always been the colour of the wiping paper in my home.
2 people like this
@Missmwngi (12915)
• Nairobi, Kenya
20 Mar 16
This is the case with people living in the country side. Newspapers cut in the shape as you explained is the norm for them lol. I was laughing reading your post hahaaa
Before newspapers plant leaves were the tissues of then ha haa
2 people like this
@lilnana1111 (2305)
• United States
31 Mar 16
I remember going to my grandpatents farm and using their outhouse, they had newspapers and magazines.
2 people like this
@nanette64 (20364)
• Fairfield, Texas
15 Mar 16
As a kid growing up in Iowa @MALUSE , we had an outhouse and the Sears catalogue was the toilet paper. The bad part was that those 'sheets' of pages were of a slick variety which made cleaning a whole lot tougher. Today of course, I use the 'real' thing but still limit myself to the number of squares used.
2 people like this
@TheHorse (218385)
• Walnut Creek, California
15 Mar 19
Heh. We have an outhouse at our cabin in Montana. I did some work on it this past Summer. I use regular TP now, but who knows what they used back in the day. Slick pages would not satisfy me. I'm a stickler around certain kinds of hygiene.
1 person likes this
@TheHorse (218385)
• Walnut Creek, California
15 Mar 19
By the way, I limit myself concerning the number of squares used as well. I have a "female" friend who is not allowed to poop in my house. She makes a "cloud" and clogs my toilet. She was banned from my bathroom after the second or third incident.
1 person likes this
@nanette64 (20364)
• Fairfield, Texas
15 Mar 19
@TheHorse My dang sister does the same thing your friend did. Thank God she only comes to visit twice a year. She can be here for only two days and go through an entire roll of TP.
1 person likes this
@yashvino (91)
• Ahmedabad, India
15 Mar 16
Frankly speaking...In India, majority of us still prefer water and the left hand..Toilet papers have found their market here too as we also had our own time with the British people..But using water and your own hand is going on since centuries..One thing is a fact though..Water is surely a better cleaning agent than paper!! Lol!!!
2 people like this
@Aquitaine24 (11813)
• San Jose, California
14 Mar 19
That is why bidets are popular in some countries.
@1hopefulman (45120)
• Canada
2 Apr 16
Until I came to Canada (1960), I had never seen toilet paper. We used leaves and grass in Italy.
2 people like this
@Fleura (30319)
• United Kingdom
6 Apr 16
When I was growing up we had graduated from newspaper and had the better quality stuff at home, but most public buildings (schools, shops, any place like that that had a toilet) used 'medicated toilet paper' which was basically waterproof and utterly useless for its alleged purpose. I have no idea why it was even invented. It did make excellent tracing paper though.
1 person likes this
@Fleura (30319)
• United Kingdom
6 Apr 16
@MALUSE It's the kind of 'paper' that is practically transparent, you use it (or used to, in the 'olden days' when we were young!) to copy pictures by laying it on top of the picture you want to copy, going over the outline, then shading the back of the paper with a pencil, laying it right side up on fresh paper and going over the outline again. Do you recognise that description?
2 people like this
@msiduri (5687)
• United States
6 Apr 16
IIRC, until about 1800, newspaper was made of rags. I do not mean to imply that you, of course, remember those good old days. but our ancestors may have enjoyed a little easier time of it.
I also recall well-off Romans used a sponge on a stick. The more well-appointed facilities had a channel of running water along the floor where said sponge could be rinsed off. Such were the exceptions, however. I imagine the plebs had to make do with the bushes more often than not.
1 person likes this
@KuznVinny (768)
• United States
27 Mar 16
There are always corn cobs. By the way, when I took German, our instructor told us Germans look down on Americans' eating corn on the cob. They said, he told us, "Ve give it to deh pigs." We don't need perfume or color in our toilet paper.
1 person likes this
@KuznVinny (768)
• United States
27 Mar 16
@MALUSE I'm not sure. Maybe from the silly program Hogan's Heroes. But he did have some accent. He wasn't just a German instructor as I recall. He was German. As to prejudice... not worry of that. I'm not.
