The Great Toilet Paper Famine

An unanticipated boon while driving rideshare

Art created by Zora Russell and commissioned by the author, her father. Photo by the author.

It is amazing what you can get for a roll of toilet paper these days. A friend sent me a video; I am not sure if it was his own cinematography or a clip that had gone viral, but essentially it depicted a gentleman with a very rural accent talking about how crazy things were getting because a stranger had come into his yard offering oral sex and a donut for a roll of toilet paper. I am going to tell you about a more wholesome exchange also involving this precious depleted resource. It occurred the other night while driving rideshare in the dark state of our current quarantine.

I hadn’t been to the store in a few days as I had stocked up pretty good prior to the panic — although I did have difficulty procuring that ever so valuable shit-paper a couple of weeks ago. I actually had made an early morning grocery store run following a graveyard shift to get my precious allotment of one package per customer before they sold out for the day. In fact, I was originally forced to settle for one small pack of four slight rolls, an allotment that would not last a man of my stature no more than week. Thankfully, while waiting in the excessively long checkout line, I discovered a twelve-pack that had been ditched by a previous customer, someone who had probably been informed they were only allowed to purchase a single pack. I bought…