Most of the people I know make sure they don't run out of this commodity and stock up when it goes on sale! Guess this is one luxury most folks don't want to do without! That includes yours truly, for sure!
Toilet Paper
Although paper had been known as a wrapping and padding material in China since the 2nd century BC, the first use of toilet paper in human history dates back to the 6th century AD, in early medieval China. During the later Tang Dynasty (618–907 AD) a Muslim Arab traveler to China in the year 851 AD remarked:
“[The Chinese] are not careful about cleanliness, and they do not wash themselves with water when they have done their necessities; but they only wipe themselves with paper.”
During the early 14th century (Yuan Dynasty) it was recorded that in modern-day Zhejiang province alone there was an annual manufacturing of toilet paper amounting in ten million packages of 1,000 to 10,000 sheets of toilet paper each. The first producer of ‘perforated’ toilet paper was the British Perforated Paper Company in 1880. Other forms of non-perforated toilet paper were available the same time and earlier, notably from the Scott brothers (Scott Paper Company) and Joseph Gayetty. Before this invention, wealthy people used wool, lace or hemp for their ablutions, while less wealthy people used their hand when defecating into rivers, or cleaned themselves with various materials such as rags, wood shavings, leaves, grass, hay, stone, sand, moss, water, snow, maize husks, fruit skins, or seashells, and cob of the corn depending upon the country and weather conditions or social customs. I will close this list with a wonderful quote by François Rabelais, the sixteenth century satirist who considered the back feathers of a live goose to be the ideal medium for this job:
“He who uses paper on his filthy bum, will always find his bullocks lined with scum”
In all the years I've spent camping, I have never considered myself a sissy for wanting some people paper around. Sure, I could have found another way in most cases, but the paper was always my personal choice! Guess I'm funny that way!
Coffee in the kitchen this morning. It might shower and we don't want to get caught by surprise, right?
