The Toilet Paper Roll

At one point during my college years, I lived in a townhouse with a friend and his girlfriend...who also happened to be my cousin. One night they were all snuggled up on the couch together, watching a movie in the dark, when I came barreling out of the bathroom with the empty roll of toilet paper. I began waving it around (like a wild woman) stomped to the T.V. and turned it off. My blood was boiling and there was no stopping the rage. "Who did this?" I shouted. "Who did not change the empty roll of toilet paper? It takes two seconds to take off the empty roll and pop on a new one. Do you not have two seconds? Do you need a demonstration on how the toilet paper holder works?" I was now holding the empty roll in the air, my other hand on my hip and my face a wrinkled contorted mess of anger. They, (because they were normal and calm), just stared at me. Their jaws dropped to the floor. They looked at each other and then back at me. I stood there, the empty roll hanging in the air. And then my cousin began to laugh, "Ok, Ang, sheesh."

I stormed off thinking, how could they not get this? It only takes two seconds. Ugh. The insensitivity and rudeness of it all. And then I stopped. Dead in my tracks. I was my mother. I was 19 years old and I had just turned into my mother. Without a doubt I had heard those same words 18 billion trillion times while growing up...that nagging motherly voice...it only takes two seconds...I had just lost my cool over an empty toilet paper roll.

I share this story because tonight I used the last of the toilet paper. I did not change the roll. I flushed the toilet. I turned off the light and I didn't even think about the toilet paper roll. But then I had to go back in there and I noticed it and I thought to myself, no, Mom, I didn't have two seconds. But its ok because my mother doesn't live here.