The Great Toilet Paper Ripoff

Why does toilet paper need a commercial? Who isn’t buying this?

Unknown

Saturday I was out grocery shopping with my mother and she wanted to buy toilet paper. I buy my toilet paper at Costco (the home brand) but this isn’t good enough for Shirley who is a toilet paper connoisseur. It has to be Cashmere, Royale or Charmin – 2 ply of course (as is the Costco toilet paper that's not good enough to grace her bathroom). There were several different types of packages on sale – double rolls or triple rolls - and I was shocked to discover that not all toilet paper rolls are created equal.

Product packaging works like a charm to deceive because Shirley immediately thought that the triple roll package of Charmin was a better buy than the double roll package of Cashmere. She was going to buy it until I told her to check out the number of sheets per roll. Much to our surprise the double rolls of Cashmere had more sheets per roll than the triple rolls of Charmin. So the Charmin wasn’t a good buy at all. Shirley bought the Cashmere even though I still believe she should buy the Costco brand. After all, it’s all going down the toilet.

It seems that anything can be called a double roll or a triple roll. There are no standards that must be adhered to. This is just another case of deceptive product packaging designed to fool the consumer. Toilet paper manufacturers are all competing in the same marketplace and they’re always looking for a new hook. I guess softness is now passé and they’ve moved onto trying to show value with double and triple rolls. The bottom line is that the consumer has to really be diligent when it comes to product packaging. It’s designed to screw you, so beware!

Life is a lot like toilet paper. You’re either on a roll…or you’re taking shit from some asshole.

Unknown

Make someone smile today.

Geri

Don’t Count on Airbnb to Vet Your Guests

Airbnb private rentals are different and more relaxed than staying in an established-branded hotel. I guess that’s the allure and the fact that you can sometimes find a fabulous deal in a great location. But this story points out that making private arrangements can be hit and miss because of lack of oversight, quality control, and compliance with regulations designed to protect guests, in a hotel we take things for granted like a local direct-dial phone, an on-duty operator, and desk staff.

Chris McGoey

Personally I have no experience with Airbnb. I would never allow strangers to live in my home and I love staying in hotels when I travel. However, I do have friends that have been happy with their Airbnb rentals but recently one of my neighbours rented out his place on Airbnb with disastrous consequences.

John rented out his place for three days while he was on a two-week vacation. Unfortunately he returned to a nightmare, which sadly he has not yet woken up from. He arrived home to find that his apartment was used for a three-day party and it was completely trashed. Half-eaten food, drinks and cigarette butts made the place look more like a landfill than an abode. All John could do was fill up garbage bag after garbage bag and haul them out to the bins outside. Unfortunately even with the trash removed the apartment was uninhabitable. John was forced out of his own home and went to stay with a friend. He hired a cleaning service to come in and see what could be salvaged after a good going over. But, John’s worst nightmares were realized. The sofa (only a few months old), drapes, lampshades and carpeting were not salvageable.

Reaching Airbnb is not an easy task. There are no phone numbers. Your only option is email and the response time is pathetic. I have no idea if Airbnb is going to assume any financial responsibility for this disaster or if there’s lots of fine print absolving them of everything. The moral of the story is not to trust Airbnb to vet your guests. Unless you do your own research and check references yourself, you can never have peace of mind. The other option is not to rent your place out to strangers. I’m sure episodes like this will have landlords and condo associations putting stipulations in their leases and by-laws, as well they should. What’s wrong with hotels anyways?

Human relationships used to be easy: you had friends, boy- or girlfriends, parents, children, and landlords. Now, thanks to social media, it's all gone sideways.

Susan Orlean

Make someone smile today.

Geri

The Power of Suggestion

Did you know line dancing was started by women waiting to use the bathroom?

Unknown

I recently had the pleasure of seeing “A Chorus Line” in Stratford. It’s a magnificent production! In fact it’s much better than the show that was staged in Toronto a few years back. Do go see it if you can. 

As everyone was settling into their seats, there was an announcement over the public address system that the run time of the show was two hours, there would be no intermission and anyone leaving during the show would not be permitted re-entry. This very innocuous statement put fear into the hearts of this audience, or as in this case, their bladders. In a nanosecond there was widespread fear about what would they do if they couldn’t “hold it” for two hours. Collectively the audience rose from their seats and scurried to the nearest washroom for one last tinkle. And contrary to what you might think, there seemed to be an equal number of panic stricken men.

Let’s be honest, hundreds of people didn’t collectively need to use the toilet. It was the power of suggestion. The mere suggestion that they couldn’t use the toilet was enough to command a visit to the washroom. Whether or not anyone donated a few drops will remain unknown but most of them tried.

You know you’re getting old when you can’t walk past a bathroom without thinking “I may as well pee while I’m here”.

Unknown

Make someone smile today.

Geri