In these times of incertitude and justifiable apprehension, we are all called upon to act sensibly and with solidarity. Some are doing just that, but there are others who are thinking about number one alone, and who will let nothing and no one prevent them facing the apocalypse with a clean bum.
There are many people now with several tons of toilet paper stocked in their garages and basements, under the sink, filling the attic. Many will be wondering how they can use it in the coming months and years or when their shopping habits go back to normal, whichever comes first. No need to worry about getting bored, though; toilet paper is extremely versatile. There are thousands of exciting recipes appearing on the Internet, as toilet paper replaces all the boring old staples like pasta, rice, and potatoes. Here are just a few of them.
Use the pure white kind mashed with a dab of lemon flavoured liquid soap to give it a creamy texture.
It makes wonderful fritters too, shaped into rounds and fried in hot oil.
Tear into flakes and use it to replace Parmesan. And don’t throw away the cardboard interiors. If you have run out of pasta, you can use them as a substitute for cannelloni, stuffed with your favourite filling with a béchamel-style topping whipped up in the blender with paper and hand wash to make it gel.
Or if you are short of time, just fill them with mash and crispy bacon and bake them in the oven.
For desserts, the pink floral paper is the best. Blend and leave it overnight in the freezer and serve with your favourite fruity hand wash or if it’s a celebration, a dash of cheery purple methylated spirits.
Hope this helps.
Jane Dougherty Writes 
Lol. I needed that!
The selfishness of some people is incredible. Never mind the stupidity.
I know. We are disabled and cant get any!
I don’t understand the thinking. Can’t people work out how much toilet paper they will need for a month say? It isn’t as if they are supplying huge families either. There were seven of us and twelve rolls a week was more than enough. Just seems stupid to me.
I know
Thank you for the laugh! It is crazy!
I just can’t get over the quantities people are buying. Joking apart, it isn’t as though toilet paper has multiple uses!
I know–it’s crazy.
It shouldn’t really surprise us. The youngest who is up in the north at university says people are getting silly, stockpiling toilet paper and…cheese. That is a potential health hazard if ever.
I hope they have wine, too. 😉
It’s beer up there, but I imagine they always keep a big stock in 🙂
🙂
Ha ha! I think I’ll stop writing kids’ books and write a book of tips called ‘101 Uses for Toilet Paper’. I reckon people will find them really helpful when the crisis is over and they’re suffocating in the stuff.
I was listening to some old codger interviewed on the radio this morning saying how he could see the use of toilet paper, but he was baffled by a) why people considered it an essential like pasta and cooking oil b) how much of it they though they needed.
Mad. Would the puppy variety be OK for hot dogs?
Ha ha! Why not? Inventiveness is what’s needed in these challenged days.
Apparently cat biscuit is getting short. That is going to mean a lot of cats packing up and moving to the countryside in disgust.
ha!
Excellent idea 💜
thanks for a good laugh
You have to. People make me despair otherwise.
Nice one! 🙂
Some might call it being flippant about a very serious subject, but there are aspects of the serious subject that are just too ridiculous not to laugh at.
Keep calm and wipe your bum. This treatise is funny. I laughed while reading. Thank you.
Yesterday, I went to the grocery store (the big, plastic kind). I thought I’d get some bread for breakfast. I passed an aisle that was empty and wondered what had been there. Turns out it was facial tissue. This will cure us from the virus? I saw another aisle empty of Italian food, boxes of pasta and jars of sauce and such. I didn’t get it. Later, a friend told me that because the Italian food there is in imperishable form, it was taken. How long do we expect this siege to last? And won’t the effects last longer if we hoard things from each other?
I so much appreciate your voice in this.
I’m glad it made you smile. The whole hoarding thing is simple egoism. If the thought behind bulk buying was a calculation based on needs for the next month say, to avoid having to shop again for four weeks and therefore stay out of the way of infection, that would be logical. But the quantities just don’t add up. People buying three years worth of toilet paper, baby wipes when they aren’t even pregnant yet, enough pasta to keep an Italian restaurant in business for a year etc etc, and the same people will be back at the supermarket every day as stocks are replenished, to get a bit more! It isn’t based on any logical list of needs or cooperation with the stay at home request, just the usual grabby principle.
Read this after I had just come back from shops having witnessed all sorts of lunacy taking place. So thank you for this relatable and amusing piece.
It’s lunatic, but nasty lunatic, depriving others of something they might actually need just so one person can have fifty times more than they need. It used to be called greed…
Agreed the whole way it has been handled both by people and the powers that be is disgraceful. Despite all the literature, art and films warning us of things like this, people haven’t really learnt anything.
Too many people seem to only ever think of themselves. Maybe it’s always been like that, but nowadays we are less compliant, and if we decide we’re not going to do what we’re told, we refuse, even if it means possibly infecting those around us.
I love this Jane, have you thought of making straws out of any coloured toilet paper, freezing them for two hours then drink hand gel through them especially tasty when using the fruity ones ( yes fruity ones) !!
Ha ha! I hadn’t thought of that, but now you mention it, if you add a teaspoon of bicarb to the hand gel you get fizzy sherbet 🙂
I had to look up a translation to get sherbet. In Yorkshire it was called kali (sounds like kay lie) and it looks funny written down. No idea how it was spelt.
I rather like the fizzy bit excellent 💜
I’m sure if you look you can get different flavoured bicarb.
I am not going near a supermarket 😖
There’s not a lot left in them to buy. You’ll be sorry you didn’t grab that pallet load of toilet rolls when you had the chance.
Noooooooo
I bet there’s plenty of sandpaper left…
Lol yes no doubt 💜
🙂
Reblogged this on willowdot21 and commented:
You have got to try these 😀💜
Cheers Willow 🙂 If anyone does try them out, I’d be interested to hear reports, rate them out of five maybe.
Lol if they survive 💜
Have you ever seen or read The Van, the Roddy Doyle novel? When JImmy Rabbit gets a chip van and the daughter who had the baby helps out, and he accidentally batters one of the baby’s nappies instead of a piece of cod?
Omg no but I shall have to now!!
Do, it’s a good film and that scene is hysterical.
Utterly brilliant! I thought my husband was going to melt with rage on Friday when he dropped by the local store for a carton of milk to find the shelves stripped of everything. It’s so selfish, so pointless and so stupid.
It is. And the same ones who’ve been in and ransacked the milk on Friday would have been in there again on Saturday, ransacking the breakfast cereal or antifreeze or whatever the supermarket had just put out. No doubt they’ll be back every day lying in wait for the holy grail of another shipment of toilet paper.
Hopefully they will drink the anti-freeze and put us all out of their imagined misery!
They would if Trump told them it cured Coronaitis.
Unbelievable isn’t it? I couldn’t get any on our local supermarket this weekend. I chatted to an elderly couple who resorted to buying tissues instead. People are so selfish. 😦
If they really believe that in three years time we will still be confined to barracks, what will be the point in being okay for toilet paper when social control has broken down, there’s no more food being produced no more water and electricity etc etc? Stupid isn’t the word.
Yes indeed Jane. 🙂
🙂
Reblogged this on M J Mallon YA/Paranormal Author and commented:
What to do with your stockpiles of toilet paper via Jane Docherty. #coronavirus #toiletpaper #humour
Thanks Marje!
Brilliant! If you can’t argue with the sillies, there’s nothing to do but poke fun of them although it is sad, tragic even.
When you see the vids of scenes in supermarkets you wonder about the whole notion of democracy. These people have the vote!
I didn’t fully comprehend the shortage until I saw the empty shelves. I hope whoever has the paper reads your wonderful recipes 😉
I think it’s mainly in the big towns that the problems of empty shelves started quite a few days back. Here there’s still no shortage, and no queues. Thank goodness!
I’m working on recipes for baby wipes. They might be harder to digest and rather more toxic…
Over here there are also shortages of baby diapers and baby formula…other possible ingredients for your fabulous concoctions.
My grocery store is at the outskirts of a very small city/town. The inventory was fairly adequate the other day but I was surprised to see some empty shelves…for toilet paper and frozen vegetables for example. I hope the shortages don’t creep into your area.
The authorities tell us that there are no shortages, but they can’t keep up with the cretins who buy twenty times more toilet rolls than they need. It’s a question of stocking the shelves, they all have plenty in reserve. Pasta was the only thing to take a hit in this area. About 50% of the population are Italian origin.
You have a point about ‘shortages’…we’re not there yet.
No, and when one type of pasta runs out we’ll have to use another…
Exactly…it doesn’t hurt to be flexible.
There are a lot of things that could go extinct that we wouldn’t miss.
Reblogged this on BOOK CHAT and commented:
There are times when we need a bit of levity and these days of worldwide COVID-19 we often see that lacking in some people. Jane Dougherty’s post will supply just that.
Cheers Michelle! It’s started here for real now. Italian style confinement to barracks for two weeks minimum.
At least you have land around you, and can walk around your yard. Stay well, my friend. Hugs.
You too 🙂 It’s a good place to be unless we catch it, in which case the lack of a hospital nearby won’t be fun!
Stay well!
We’re doing our best. You too!
Doing our best to stay put. All this rain though, doesn’t lift anyone’s spirits. Praying for a sunny day.
I hope you get the sun, even if you’re not allowed out in it. We have the sun back though the ground is still like a swamp. Full of food for the birds and that’s the main thing 🙂
🥰
This is great, Jane. I really needed a smile.
Glad it worked 🙂 One of my kids has just messaged from town to say she’s had to buy kitchen roll because there’s no toilet paper left. Now I’m having visions of blocked toilets…
Printing this now for addition to my cookbook.
I’d be pleased to hear if you make any adaptations 🙂
Maybe convert these for the slow cooker – the better to savor the flavor.
Sounds good. I’m savouring that slow-cooked smell now.
Wow and woah! That’s awesome. I can feel your anger, if that’s what you are expressing. Society should be better, and I am so glad Indians don’t use toilet papers. Well, we do try to make up for it with our clapping. Heard about it?
I’m not so much angry as despairing that people are so self-centred.
I did hear about the clapping. They were doing that here too, and singing in Italy, but I don’t know if it’s a regular thing any more.
Clapping is okay, but you did not see what some of us (shameful to say) did. I’ll try to find a YouTube link.
There has been shameful behaviour everywhere. From the highest to the lowest.
Yes, and well I couldn’t find any video. So I’ll explain. On 22nd of last month, we were under a self imposed curfew and our prime Minister has told us to clap from our homes, balcony or windows to celebrate essential service workers. And what happened is, after celebrating full day curfew, people gathered from dozens to hundred on various people, banged cooking utensils, played drums, sounded musical instruments, arranged parades on different parts of the country and a sort of celebrations of staying inside for one day which is to stay gather in groups. See my point?
You mean they stayed confined for one day then went on a party in big groups in the evening to celebrate? Mindless.
Yesss. Exactly. And for the coming Sunday, one more order from prime Minister to light ‘deepams’, and we are just waiting to see what these morons are going to do.
It has to be everyone doing the same thing and doing it properly or there’s no point. If it’s just a ‘suggestion’ or ‘advisable’ then no one will do it. People don’t naturally think of others first, they have to be forced.