The world can be a prickly place, but underneath all the chaos and cruelty, there are saints among us who perform quiet acts of kindness to help soften the world’s sharp edges. We plain-clothed angels work among you so innocuously, you probably didn’t realize I was the thankless do-gooder who changed the toilet paper roll last week at McGillicuddy’s tap room. You’re welcome.
The story begins mundanely enough, as the hero’s journey often does. The two-for-one margarita night had me leaking like a sieve and running to the bathroom every five seconds. Of course, the second I plop down on the toilet, I hear my karaoke song being queued up. As any good performer would, I engaged my pelvic floor and stopped the flow midstream so I could rush out just in time to catch the chorus of Mr. Tambourine Man, but something troubling caught my eye.
There was nothing left on the toilet paper roll but tattered bits of one-ply clinging to the factory glue. I was tempted to drip-dry, but then I spotted a fresh roll on a shelf an arm’s length away. I knew if I made the reach for it, the gap would be just large enough where a little bit of pee would trickle down my leg and onto my jeans, but the lion does not concern itself with a little bit of pee on its leg. To serve myself and my community, I conducted a changing of the guard.
With the calm precision of a veteran marine changing the magazine out of an automatic rifle, I unwrapped a new roll and made the switch. The spent cardboard was disposed of in the proper receptacle, and a fresh roll was locked, loaded, and ready to wipe some ass. I even corrected the positioning so that the toilet paper hung over rather than under. If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.
I briefly considered fashioning the end of the roll into one of those fancy triangles, but at this point, an angry line had formed outside the bathroom, with people asking things like, “What’s going on in there?” and “Does anybody know how to take a door off its hinges?” Nevertheless, I was more than confident they’d be eating their words after seeing the turnkey bathroom I’d left behind for them.
