Roll With It

In the dead of the night, when the witching hour has long gone and black is the only colour, They come. Knowing no fear and advancing in numbers from their hiding hole, their den, their nest, They come. For all the defenceless rolls and unguarded paper, They come.

Of the menace there is no trace, only a gaping void remains where previously salvation awaited. But there can be no accurate description of these beasts with no soul, they have never been seen. The monstrosity remains unnamed and untamed, only the legend, the dark unforgiving legend lends shape and substance to the myth. The black and bloodied razor-sharp teeth get ready to tear, shred and pulverize. No-one is safe. 2-ply, 4-ply and aloe vera, all are but mere fodder for this most voracious of cannons.

Every single day our sacrificial lamb is prepared, and every single day the lamb is slaughtered. My breath runs shallow and stutters as I consider the fate of the next offering. We must accept destiny and open the purse strings once more. We must accept life and death, we must rear our new virgin.

Let the ceremony unfold, let the new roll out of its plastic sarcophagus. Release the new sheets.

Thus disappear four new rolls of toilet paper, unseen, unheard, unmourned. We will never understand how a whole family pack of Andrex peach-coloured toilet paper can be brought into the pristine world of our upstairs bathroom on a Saturday morning, yet be consigned to a lifetime of vanishing luxury loo-paper limbo before the downing of the evening sun. Their perforation will never live to see the following dawn, nor shall they ever cleanse the new day buttock.

The silent killers have struck again. The paperlust has been satisfied. The burning question there for our brave and foolish household of three men to answer: which of us will be caught short this time?