Fixing the Loo Roll

It is well established that toilet paper is to be hung with a square facing forward – the “over” method – and not hidden behind – the “under” method. The over method avoids the indignity of having to paw for the end of the loo roll only to finally tear away a few meagre pieces to complete your business. It’s also the way Mary Kenner, the inventor of the toilet paper holder, drew it or arranged to have it drawn, in the original patent application.

The over method is noteworthy in that even the dimmest of humanity can quickly locate and grab a square. In hotels, toilet paper is always hung this way, sometimes with the first square conveniently folded at the base into a triangle for even easier grabbing. Even in the dark.

There are a misguided few who will argue in favour of the under method, but even if you didn’t care about honouring the original patent application method, or emulating a hotel chambermaid when you changed the roll, on efficiency alone, the over method always proves superior.

So, it was with a great deal of disappointed surprise to find, when I stepped into the toilet at a fancy art gallery, the toilet paper hung wrong.

Quickly supplanting the disappointment though, was the dilemma I now faced. Do I change it to its rightful position or leave it? Was this a test of the art gallery owner? Some way of judging the patrons? What would it say about me if I fixed the loo roll? Would it be taken as a sign of anal retentivity, or a sign of someone who sees a wrong and rights it?

I pondered as I peed. I was only at the gallery because my therapist said I needed to be among people once in a while.

“I’m not asking you to find a friend,” she’d said as she closed her notebook.

We’d had yet another long chat about my reluctance to engage with the outside world and were almost done for the day.

“All I ask is that you try to talk to a few people you don’t know. Make a connection, no matter how small. Think of it as a challenge,” she said.

A challenge to her was torture to me but she also knew I’d probably end up doing it. I wasn’t agoraphobic or pathologically shy or even your run-of-the-mill masochist. I simply didn’t like many people. I didn’t like being around them and all of their assumptions and stares and judgments. Some of them, well, many of them, were just idiots, addled by their own unwillingness to be anything but ignorant, or saddled with some other defect or bad habit or addiction. I didn’t want to hang out with all that.

When I’d asked where I should go to do this challenge, she’d suggested that I look through the entertainment section of the local paper.

“No movies, though. Sitting in the dark by yourself doesn’t count.” Just as I was closing her office door, she’d called out, “And try not to be snarky.”

I’d gone home, picked up the paper in the front lobby of my apartment building, and, over a cup of tea, had picked the art exhibit at a nearby gallery as it looked the least offensive. Jamie someone. There was no photo of the artist, just a painting of an ornate picture frame with a candle in the middle, dribbling wax onto and outside of the frame. Against a dusty brown and red background, the golden picture frame gleamed elegance, with deep shadows on the curlicues, and the bright yellow candle wax lightened in colour as it dribbled down. It was gaudy and I liked it.

It took me longer than it should have to find the end of the roll, which decided it for me. I took the roll off, turned it over, and put it back. I washed and dried my hands, gave my hair a quick comb through with my fingers, then left the toilet.

A woman was outside the door waiting to go in. I smiled and automatically apologized for taking so long.

I returned to the gallery and its soft buzz of voices. I was thankful that there were only about twenty people and there was no music. I’d worried as I walked to the gallery that it would be packed and that they’d play a new age soundtrack, the kind with whistly winds, a small mallet gently striking a tin drum, and wind chimes tinkling in the background. I hated that shit.

I grabbed a glass of wine from one of the roving waiters, and pretended to study the various paintings and sculptures. The sculptures were mostly lumps of metal or concrete or rubber, shaped into…things. Fingers, tails, rotted-out pumpkins? I couldn’t find the painting of the candle. Most of the paintings consisted of splashes of deep red and purple and blue paint. They were angry paintings. But what did I know?

I saw the woman return from the bathroom. I wondered if she was an over or an under methodist. I slowly made my way along the wall, heading back to the bathroom to check, but was stopped when a silver-haired woman in a white suit stepped in front of me.

“Carmen,” the woman said, one hand flat against her chest, the other extended, fingers dangling down, toward me.

“Uh, Kim,” I said, taking her limp hand and giving it a shake.

“I’m Jamie’s agent.”

“Jamie?”

“The artist,” Carmen said, gesturing elegantly to the red painting I was standing in front of.

“Oh of course, Jamie Zee.”

“Jamie’s such a visionary.”

“I think he’s angry.” Would my honest opinion be considered snarky by my therapist?

“He?” Carmen arched an eyebrow at me.

“Oh,” I said. “Sorry, she.”  

Carmen’s brow arched even higher, as though she had some kind of tiny hydraulic system in her forehead.

“Sorry, they. It’s hard sometimes for me to remember.”

“That’s all right, sweetheart. We all do, from time to time. Even Jamie,” and her voiced dropped low in whisper, “himself.” Then she smiled at me, bleach bright, and with way too many teeth.

“Hah,” I said, and gave an anemic laugh. Carmen slid away from me, wiggling bye-bye to me with her fingers as she left. I saw her disappear around the corner, which was the way to the bathroom. I couldn’t go and check the loo roll now.

I went back to the paintings. A blue one, a purple one. One with reds and purples, glitter in the corner. The thick gobs of paint looked hard, like the canvass had been beaten up.

A woman brushed by me and also disappeared down the hallway. A moment later Carmen came back round the corner and headed for a group of four who were admiring one of the blue paintings, her fingers already dangling in anticipation.

I moved towards the hallway again but a man strode by me and he too turned the corner towards the loo. There was only one bathroom. I peeked around the corner. He stood outside the toilet door, waiting his turn.

I gave up. Even if someone had changed the roll back to its initial position, I would then have to figure out which of the four people who’d used the bathroom after me had done it. And that would mean talking to them.

I inspected the sculptures instead. The finger and tails one turned out to be a sculpture of tree roots, bursting forth from a lily pad. It looked desperate, like the limb of some creature in a cheesy sci-fi movie. I sipped my wine. Another roving waiter came by with a tray full of cheese somethings. I took several plus a cloth napkin. Fancy.

What I had taken for a rotted pumpkin looked more up close like a sculpture of a diseased kidney. It was shiny and orange-red-brown, with thin wires sticking out from it. I reached out a hand to touch it and was immediately poked. Untouchable, I thought, eating a cheese something.

I thought about my therapist and immediately felt guilty. I needed to barge in on some conversation, make some small talk, then get out of there. Would that be good enough? Would it be enough of a challenge for me? It had been a challenge just coming here, let alone finding the loo roll the wrong way.

I walked on and looked at another painting. Huge splotches of thick red and yellow paint slapped onto a beige and tan canvas, like someone had had a seizure while squirting ketchup and mustard on a massive hot dog bun. Messy. I finished my last cheese something and wiped my hands and mouth on the napkin.

I looked around for someplace to set the plate down but the only table had Carmen lounging against it, chatting up a fabulously dressed couple, her fingers still dangling downward like a mass of limp worms on a fishing hook.

I went back to looking at the ketchup and mustard painting, my plate in hand.

“Excuse me?”

I turned to see a youngish woman, maybe thirties, in a drab brown dress, cinched at the waist with a cream-coloured belt, and her hair pulled back tight against her head in a ponytail.

“What’s the name of this painting?” she asked, pointing. I was about to say “Ketchup and Mustard” but paused long enough to follow where she was pointing and saw the plate that was affixed beside the painting on the wall.

“Um, Rock hard place. Oil,” I said, reading.

“Rock hard place,” she said, “or rockhard place? Or for that matter rock, hard place, like you were introducing a rock to a hard place, you know?”

“I think it’s the first one. There’s a space between ‘rock’ and ‘hard’.”

“Oh. Okay. Thanks.” She stood there, looking at the painting.

I was starting to feel uncomfortable with her just standing there beside me.

“I think it looks like ketchup and mustard,” she suddenly said.

I blinked. “Pardon?”

“Oh, you know. You’re always supposed to hem and haw and ooh and aah over paintings but really, this just looks like someone sprayed the canvas with condiments. This is what I hate about what some people call art. Anyone or their dog could do something like this.”

I turned towards her.

“Sorry if I offended you. I don’t mean to, I just, well…look at it!”

I didn’t have to. I nodded slightly. I knew exactly what she meant. She looked how I felt, amused, annoyed, but in the end, tired and a more than a little exasperated with the whole thing.

“Well, it was nice chatting with you,” she said and walked away. She disappeared down the same corridor to the bathroom.

Carmen had finally moved away from the table so I set my glass, plate and napkin down, snitched another glass of wine from a roving waiter, and thought about what had just happened.

There was a ting of a knife being struck against a wine glass. Carmen stood off to one side of the large red painting I’d thought was angry.

“Your attention, everyone! Thank you all for coming,” she began.

I didn’t listen. I went into my stare mode where I still heard and saw things, but at a distance, not quite focused. My attention wandered and I looked for the woman in the brown dress.

“So, without further ado, as they say, please welcome the artist, Jamie Zee!”

The name brought me back to reality momentarily. I was curious what the artist looked like. The man who strode towards Carmen, giving the requisite double kiss, and who wore baggy red and purple striped trousers, a long taupe-coloured cardigan, an expensive looking one, too, and his hair wound into a bun was just about the most stereotypical wanker I’d ever seen.

I immediately heard my therapist’s admonition not to be snarky in my head. Fine. I’m sure he’s a perfectly nice person, just with horrid fashion and hair sense. I was, however, beginning to question if this was the same person who painted the candle painting, the one that had convinced me to come. Where was that damned painting? I should have asked Carmen.

Jamie started to talk about his process and choice of subject matter. I sipped my wine and dropped back into stare mode.

Jamie was wrapping up his blathering and I saw that I had finished my wine. I looked at my watch. I’d been at the gallery for an hour and a quarter. I’d looked at some art and talked to two people, and one of those conversations had not been that bad. I had agreed with the brown-dress woman’s assessment of the ketchup and mustard painting. Surely, that met the challenge? I decided that it did.

I should pee before I leave, I thought.

I started towards the corridor and there was the woman in the brown dress standing in the doorway. I’d have to pass her to get to the bathroom.

I smiled and nodded at her as I approached and she gestured for me to come closer. I hesitated a moment but came over but didn’t stand very close.

“The artist? Jamie Zee? I just met him. What an asshole. He was in the bathroom ahead of me and he comes storming out ranting about some idiot who flipped the toilet paper roll. Of all the things to get worked up about, eh? I mean, what difference does it make?”

Fuck. Not only was the artist an under methodist and probably, now that I thought of it, not the artist who painted the candle painting, but if the brown-dressed woman thought there was no difference in how loo roll was hung, then our identical assessment of the painting must have been a fluke.

I peed, put the loo roll back to its proper position, and left the gallery.

I bought donuts on the way home at the place I went to regularly. The cashier knew that I always bought a chocolate cruller and a chocolate éclair and, if she saw me, would have them waiting for me at the cash before I’d even set foot through the door. We always exchanged the minimum of information to complete the transaction.

This time, though, I went in because, once again, I had to pee. Too much wine. I thought it might be rude not to get something else in exchange for the use of their bathroom, so I sat down at the counter and asked for a cup of coffee, for here. The cashier looked surprised but grabbed a cup and saucer from below the counter and set it in front of me. She grabbed the pot and poured me a cup of coffee.

“Still want the cruller and éclair?”

“Yes, thanks.”

While she went to get my baked goods, I went to the bathroom. I had never been to the bathroom here before but knew where it was. Here, there were two bathrooms.

I sat down and saw that the toilet paper was hung correctly. It first square had also been folded into a triangle.

I returned to my seat where a small box containing my cruller and éclair sat on the counter. I drank my coffee, then took out my wallet.

“How much?” I called to her.

“Same as always,” she said, coming over.

“But I had coffee.”

“Nah, on the house. You’re a regular.”

A regular, I thought. I’d never been called that before. I’d never thought about the cashier at all outside of the donut shop.

“A regular?”

“Yeah. You’re in here at least twice a week. I mean, you don’t spend much but you’re a lot nicer than some of the other people who come in here,” she said. “And smell better. Want a top up?”

I laughed and took out some bills.

“No thanks,” I said.  

She smiled, picking up the cash. “Okay then. See you in a couple of days.”

I nodded, picked up my box, and said goodnight.

On my way home, I ate the cruller. As I walked and chewed, I thought about what I’d say to my therapist at next week’s session, and rehearsed it in my head. I went over certain details of the evening: Carmen, the woman in the brown dress, the wanker artist and his paintings, and the absence of the candle painting. I went through all of that, and all I had really needed to do was go out and get donuts.

Make a connection, you said, I said in my head, no matter how small.

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