Virus: A topic no one wants to touch

For more than a week, I have been writing daily on different angles of the coronavirus story, or World War III, as I have been calling it.

There’s one angle I have not covered, hoping there would always be something more fragrant. It’s a topic I do not want to touch, and many of you might not wish to read. But I must roll it out.

Since some clowns are hoarding it, what happens if you run out of toilet paper? 

Yes, I am going to go there.

Of all the things to hoard — that? Great Scott!

WTF is wrong with (some of) you? I’d like to wipe the floor with you. 

Toilet paper — known as TP to its friends — is essential to life. How do I know that? Because Gov. Tom Wolf decreed that when exempting a TP manufacturer from having to shut down during the coronavirus crisis. 

Well, that’s a relief. Just Charmin.

Any American alive today — with the exception of some ancients who lived deep in rural areas — always had toilet paper. The people who lived deep in the hollers, as they would say, had leaves, bark, corn cobs and the thick Sears, Roebuck merchandise catalogue that reached everywhere in America.

Yes, I did say corn cobs. Think about it. Sustainability.

I am writing about some solutions to sanitation that modern Americans may have forgotten, or never known, before we had TP. Let me take a crack at it. 

Let’s say you are running out, down to your last few sheets. Praying for constipation would be a temporary fix. Eventually, there would be an explosion.

That’s when you’re sorry you don’t subscribe to the Daily News or Inquirer. Yes, I know some of you like to say the only thing they’re good for is to wipe your ass. Turns out you are right. (You know newsprint is great at cleaning glass and windows, too.) 

So that is Level One. While it is not as soft as your delicate derriere has grown used to, it beats brown craft paper and glossy magazines. 

Look around your home for Level Two. Paper towels will work, but you’d prefer the thinnest ones for this duty. Napkins. Junk mail, there’s an endless supply. Lots coming now from Publishers’ Clearing House. 

Even the so-called single-use plastic bags from the grocery. (I know, but these are desperate times and that’s what a lot of dog owners use to pick up the poop.)

At Level Three, you can use any of a variety of wipes, such as baby wipes, or even fabric.

Ewww. I know, I know but that’s what an old-fashioned diaper was — fabric that would be laundered. Am I wrong? 

Level Four is American currency, but I do not recommend it. 

American Victor Herman, in a book titled, “The Gray People,” wrote about his experiences as a captive in the Soviet Gulag. He detailed various forms of torture, starvation, and mistreatment, including no toilet paper for the inmates.

I won’t go into detail. 

We are not in the Gulag. Look around your home — it’s rich in what you need for relief.

Damn the hoarders, let them roll in their TP.