When we first were told that we should take toilet paper we were kind of dismissive (I was going to write that we poo-pood the idea but then realized I can’t say that when talking about TP:). But then several people whose opinion I respect said “No really”. Then began the task of deciding how much toilet paper a family of six needs for two years. We settled on a roll per person per week. Does that sound right to you?

But turns out that there is no such thing as a “roll” anymore. Everything is a “double roll” or a “triple roll”. Who knew? (my sister probably….). So when I estimated a roll per person per week I didn’t really know what kind of roll I was thinking of. We hadn’t been brand selective with our toilet paper (though to M’s initial frustration I usually buy recycled), so I didn’t even know if our baseline was a single, double, or triple version of whatever industry as decided is a “roll”. Then, if you are going to bother to ship TP halfway around the world, what brand do you choose? I was told this time recycled wouldn’t do.

With no tax in our province we were saved the dreaded one-time Costco run where you are forced to buy everything for shipment at once to save the tax, so had the luxury of buying over several shopping trips. In the end we had a mix of double and triple rolls, what was on sale or cheapest that day. You can see from the photo that K1’s packing procrastination led to a TP tower that almost reached the twenty-foot ceiling in our living room! We’ll let you know if we run out or two years from now or if we still have a closet full for my successor.