Most people have been through this. You finish your business in the bathroom, reach for the toilet paper, and… it’s gone. Panic sets in. No one answers your desperate calls for help. What do you do?
This never happened to my kids in our home, but it did happen to me when I was a child. One particular incident stands out in my memory. I was visiting relatives — a family of six — when nature called. After doing my business, I turned to grab some toilet paper, only to find an empty roll. I called out for help, but no one came.
Then, I noticed it: an old, tattered comic book lying near the toilet, some of its pages already torn out. It didn’t take long to realize — this was their backup plan. When they ran out of toilet paper, they used comic book pages. And so, with no other options, I had to do the unthinkable: I wiped my behind with Archie.
Yes, Archie. As in Archie and Jughead.
A Questionable System
After my traumatic experience, I confronted my relatives. How does a family of six run out of toilet paper so often? Their answer? They bought one roll at a time from the convenience store.
One. Roll. For six people.
I was baffled. “Why not buy a four-pack or an eight-pack?” I asked. Buying in bulk is cheaper and more efficient. But no—their system was to run out completely, resort to comic books or newspapers, and then go buy another single roll.
Contrasting Household Habits
In my parents’ house, we never had this problem. My mom always bought toilet paper in bulk — four or eight rolls at a time. But there was a problem — she stored the extra rolls in a kitchen cabinet downstairs, while the bathroom we used most often was upstairs. So, if we ran out mid-use, we’d have to crack the door open and yell, “Can someone bring me toilet paper?”
As a parent, I made sure my kids never experienced this. We kept plenty of toilet paper in the house, with extra rolls stored right in the bathroom. No comic books. No frantic calls for help. Just a smooth, well-managed system.
Another Example of Home Mismanagement
Speaking of baffling household habits, I once did a Feng Shui Consultation for a family who had a clock graveyard. Their solution to dead batteries wasn’t replacing them, but replacing the entire clock. I kid you not. Their walls were a museum of frozen time: a cuckoo clock stuck mid-silent scream, a digital alarm flashing 12:00 like a distress signal, and a rooster-shaped clock that hadn’t crowed since the past century. When I asked why, they shrugged: “We just never have batteries.”
Read more about this story here.
What About Your Home?
How does your household handle toilet paper? Do you wait until the last sheet is gone before restocking? Or do you plan ahead and buy in bulk?
How do you deal with devices when the batteries die? Do you give up on them or replace the batteries?
These may seem like small things, but how you handle the little things reflects how you handle the bigger things. Is your home under control, or is chaos the norm? These small, everyday choices add up.
So, next time you reach for that last square of toilet paper, ask yourself: Is this really the best system? Because trust me — no one wants to resort to Archie.
How you do the little things is an expression of how you do the bigger things.
Want to start learning Feng Shui? Take the class Feng Shui Explained.
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I bought a 32 roll package for a house of 2 people.
You saved money, I bet!