Let’s start this article by acknowledging a universal truth. That is: all of us have at some point tried to wipe our asses with something that’s not toilet paper. This might have happened to you on a tropical holiday after a curry, or maybe during some high-pressure social event in which it was impossible to leave the toilet and go shuffling about looking for toilet paper without people noticing, let alone making a total mess. So you found a receipt in your wallet or you found some hapless shrub and you made do. And it’s fine, we’ve all been there. You just make do.
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So let’s keep that in mind. Wiping your ass with things that aren’t toilet paper is fine and normal and if you do it right, maybe even a little bit of fun.
Newspaper
- It’s spikey. Somehow, regardless of how careful you are, newspaper manages to fold itself into a series of small pointy bits that lacerate your butt.
- It’s too goddam smooth. Toilet paper works because it’s absorbent and porous but newspaper is neither of those things. Newspaper just smears.
- If the first two problems weren’t discorouging enough, imagine introducing a whole lot of ink to the situation.
- Newspaper blocks your toilet fast. Like weirdly fast. Try flushing a section of newspaper the size of a postage stamp and your toilet will never work again.
- Wiping your ass with people’s faces isn’t as much fun as you’d think. This photo might depict a face that truly deserves being used as toilet paper, but this photo was carefully staged. When you’re in an IRL wiping situation, you don’t have the time nor the patience to go riffling around looking for the perfect face to shit on. So you just end up using whatever is there, which in my case meant lots of endangered birds and cute orphans, and that added a whole new level of discomfort to the inky, spikey, smeary, blocked-up plumbing misery of using newspaper as toilet paper.
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0 stars out of 10
Orange Peel
Cigarette papers
A leaf
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Now, as you can imagine, camping without toilet paper achieves all the same positive results, but with the dial turned way up. There’s a certain primal satisfaction that comes with stepping back from your own shit in a forest clearing and hobbling into the nearest stream to wash off. Or diving into the ocean. You feel cosmic energy flow through your bones like rain. You feel peaceful and connected. You feel surprisingly clean.You will, however, note that I’ve described this toilet-paper free scenario ending with swimming, and not with leaves, and that’s because leaves are useless. Don’t ever use leaves. They break apart and you’ll find yourself gingerly dabbing at your own pooie sphincter until you realise what’s happened and you’ll recoil like you’ve been electrocuted.2 out of 10