Dirty Side Down

“There is a right way and a wrong way to wipe an ass,” mama taught me. She demonstrated the toilet paper folding and wiping technique. I was to take a length of toilet paper, fold it down onto itself along the demarcated lines, ending up with a thick square. I was to wipe once with the square and then fold over the paper in the opposite direction as the original fold. Wipe again. Fold again. Wipe again. Fold again. I was to repeat this until each square had a bit of crap stain on it and was also covering the crap stain from the previous square. Origami fans drool on. It was the technique she’d developed in Cuba in order to save money and make the most of the scarce and precious papel de inodoro, or as proper ladies called it, papel sanitario, which means “sanitary paper,” but reminds me of “sanitary napkins,” and because I’m bilingual the association leads to images of people wiping their asses with absorbent Maxipads.

>The problem with mama’s efficient system wasn't the system itself, it was the Hitleresque vigilance. Because we had a septic tank, we weren’t supposed to flush the toilet paper down the toilet. Not that septic tanks can’t handle toilet paper, but mama thought if we kept the paper out of the toilet it would put less stress on the crap-eating bacteria in the tank thereby saving us money in septic maintenance costs.* The toilet paper waste basket was part of mama’s system. After wiping, we were supposed to put the folded square of dirty toilet paper into the basket with the most recently dirtied side facing down so that guests wouldn’t be offended at the sight of brown spotted paper.

Christ help us if we forgot to put the toilet paper dirty-side-down; mama would bring the entire waste basket to the suspected perpetrator and show it to him. It was just me and dad in the house, so she had a fifty fifty chance of being right. If you didn’t use the paper efficiently, the consequences were far worse. Whenever mama emptied the toilet paper baskets she’d do a spot check, selecting a few wadded squares and unfolding them from end to end. I knew I was in trouble if she’d come into my room with a banner of inefficiently used paper squares. She’d dangle the evidence before me and count the number of crap spots. If each square sheet along the unfurled length of paper did not contain at least one fecal smear, mama would demonstrate her technique once again and would have me practice with the already-used length of toilet paper. It was a feat to avoid touching any of the half-dried crap already on it as I folded. Pretended to wipe. Folded. Pretended again. On and on until I’d convinced her that I was both sorry and rededicated to saving money with each bowel movement.