A Dry Look at Toilet Paper

us so you can explain why there's no love. Yeah, and everybody else, go to s y sk live dot com and buy your tickets now because they're going fast. Welcome to Stuff you should know from how Stuff Works dot com. Hey, you'm welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry and we're about to get our hands dirty the How Toilet Paper Works episode dumb Dude. There were so many puns

in this article. I was like driving in pain. I will say that this was a a draft of a future House to Works article. Yeah, I gathered so it hasn't been through the editing and a process, and I'm hoping and praying the editor will have some good, the good taste. To remove some of these euphemisms about poop. Yeah, because it's not necessary. No, you don't have to get hilarious about poop. It's hilarious on its own, sure, you know. Yeah,

I like this one. By the way. Yeah, toilet paper has a pretty interesting history actually, And there's the one thing I didn't quite realize. It's pretty American actually toilet paper is if you go elsewhere in the world, people have different feelings about toilet paper than Americans do. You come back and you realize, like, wow, America really really loves its toilet paper. And you start to look at statistics and it really kind of comes home, like, for example, yeah,

here's some editing that needs to happen. This guy's got some numbers wrong. But what I found, Yeah, what I found was that Americans spend something like six billion dollars on toilet paper every year. Yeah, it is about rolls per person, is that right? Yep? Per year? Um, and we do we do something like we go through something like thirty six and a half billion rolls of toilet paper each year in America. Thirty six and a half

billion rolls of toilet paper every year. That is a lot of toilet paper, um, and we're we were not showing many signs of stopping. As a matter of fact, toilet paper is getting more expensive by the year. It's it's rising by about two in cost every year, and we we're saying give it to us. There's lots of theories that if toilet paper somehow became a luxury item, Um, Americans would just say, well, I have to buy this

luxury item. I cannot live without toilet paper. Yeah, but it's because we love our toilet paper, and you don't think about it until you experience something other than toilet paper, which is usually a stream of water up your pot. Yes, and we've talked about this before, but for those of you who haven't heard our various statements on this, I want to officially go on record again saying that toilet paper is gross and disgusting and the idea of wiping

poop from your butt with dry paper is counterintuitive. It makes no sense. And if you don't involve water in some way to the process, then you're doing it wrong. Huh, You're you're a communist. I'm a badatist. Yeah, so do you have one at home? Well, now I need to rehook it up. I bought one of the toilet ones because after I said that a couple of years ago, everyone was like, dude, here you go, sent me the link to the product. I bought one immediately and hooked

it up. But um, we did some bathroom renovations and it is uh now somewhere in a bag in my house and I just need to find it and get it going again. So you have a bidday floating around your house in a bag somewhere. Yeah, what what kind is Is it? Like one that's like a toilet lid slash biday Uh, it's it. It fits under the lid and um squirts a jet of water to your butt. I've got one of those Japanese UM toilet seats that has a bidet and a dryer and everything, and really

they're fantastic, buddy man. And they're not. I mean it's it's it's more expensive than a regular toilet seat, but there it's not so outrageously expensive that you know. Yeah, well you probably say some on toilet paper. I do a little bit. I mean toilet paper. You still need to at yourself dry you definitely do, although if you have a dryer, do you. Yeah, but you'd have to sit there for fifteen minutes to get So what's the problem.

I remember there was a George Carlin album where he was talking about some game show contestant, and one of the one of the game show contestants hobbies was, um, sitting on the toilet till my legs go numb. That's so funny. The little things that stand out from your childhood. Yeah, like that's locked in there, but you probably don't remember something really important about your family, like multiplication. Oh yeah, we're schooling alright. So history of toilet paper, uh, man,

like so many things. If you go back to ancient China, they were apparently future people because it seems like so many things, Um, the ancient Chinese people thought of and then it just sort of went away for a thousand years. Well they they invented paper, right, so if you're making paper and you're pooping, eventually you're gonna put the two together, like, oh, I'll just use this because at the time, or prior to this, all around the world basically humans used whatever

was handy, like leaves. Moss was very popular for men. Uh leaves not bad, Yeah, moss, I would say a little messy but softish beat moss is the bomb, especially if it's fresh. It says on here coconuts, I don't even know where to start with that. Yeah, I guess if you went with the grain it would be okay. But you I'm sure it's not like a whole coconut. You're using like a part of a shell or something like a shard. Yeah, don't say shard in that area.

That's but I think a coconut shell, the outer shell would be at least like it would probably do the job, you know, right, it's kind of rough, right, it says shells. Yeah that if you live near the coast, you could use shells. And there's definitely only some kind of mollusks that would be better than others. I saw somebody point out that there's such a thing as razor clams. Yeah, I know what a razor clam has. Not want to use that? Uh Snow, you're definitely on the right track

with that. Corn cobs huge, huge in America. I think that makes a lot of sense. Sure, it's got like the kind of rough bits, but it's can turn it about perfectly shaped, continually turn it and you get you know, new coverage. Or whatever. Yeah, the only thing like the corn cob. Using a corn cob is that you have to like, um, play banjo music in your head while you're using it. It's the only way to do it.

Sheep's wool not bad. No, And uh, if you were a rich type frenchie from the Renaissance on, you would probably use lace. Lace. I saw that, and that, Uh, that doesn't make any sense because lace is full of holes. That seems so French royalty, like I'll only wipe my bottom with handmade lace, right. And I think also if you were royalty, you weren't actually the one doing your your own bottom, like for example, um, King Henry the Eighth, who I know wasn't French, he had a position called

the groom of the stool. That wasn't just him. No, So I think if you were super rich, you had people wipe for you, which is now the only time you do that is if you've broken both of your arms. Where here here's the deal. I looked up groom of the stool because that immediately piqued my interests. First of all, they're not talking about a stools in poop. They're talking about like a stool sample. No, it means like this portable commode that looked like a stool that they would

carry around. I wonder if that's where the term for poop stool came from. That I don't know, let's just say yes, okay. I also found that and this was a position that all of royalty held, like it was he He was not the only one. They're all all the kings had them in queens and dukes and duchesses. But they were their very closest helpers obviously, But apparently

they didn't actually help them wipe. Um. They would help them undress, for sure, they would be in charge of the commode upkeep, and apparently they would um just kind of track their meal schedule and dietary goings on, like what goes in and what comes out. But I didn't see anywhere where they actually like wiped their butts for them. I see you've pastor beans. It is Tuesday. Uh. Most of them were nights and King George the third Matt.

King George actually had a groom of the stool. John Stewart with you, a RT who eventually became Prime Minister of England. Wow, how about that man? Thank you for bringing us up to date because I was grossly misled by this how stuff works article. Well, yeah, it sounds like, wipe your butt for you. I failed to do the proper outside research, so thank you for saving me and shaming me at the same time. Well, that sounds like

I don't blame you. Probably read groom in the stool and you're like, Yep, don't need to know anything more about that. No, but I should have known better. You know, I've been doing this for years. I'm supposed to be professional, all right. Ancient Greeks used clay and stone, and the Romans, they were on the right track. They used like a sponge on a stick which was wet and that they would then clean with saltwater. Yeah. Well, actually taking it

back a second, the Greek's actually used polished bits of stone. Yeah, puss pussy. And then there was also something called um I think a stroiky oh stroiky um, and that was where if you would um, if the town was voting on like kicking somebody out, they would have there be these like bits of ceramic with the person's name engraved on it and they just throw it into this pot or whatever. Well, to really show your disdain for somebody, you could use one of these astroy kys um as

a stone for wiping yourself. You're wiping yourself with the person's name, which is about as bad as it gets. But that's where the word ostracize comes from because it sounds like an Australian like exclamation astro y. People get the point. Um. People are using whatever they can to wipe their butts like it's an issue. Things get messy since the dawn of time took took. It was like, you know, it doesn't feel good to walk around after a poop if I haven't cleaned myself. So it was

an issue. And let's fast forward in time two uh seven, this is where it's starting to get good. In New York City. Uh, there was a man named Joseph Gaietti and he invented something called Gayeties Medicated paper sheets yep. And they were it was toilet paper, but it was not yet on a roll. They were more like a tissue that you would put pull out of a box like Kleenex. Yeah. They were like, if you want a brand name, Buzzet, that's fine. Proprietary him, uh about fifty

cents for five sheets, and he was so proud. He had his name printed on them. But I didn't think that through. Um but here's the deal. You had a hard time selling it because at the time, and this is no joke, Americans used literally used the Farmer's Almanac and the Sears Catalog to wipe their butts. Yeah. As a matter of fact, both of them I think came with a hole punched in like the top corner to make it easier just hang from a nail in your outhouse. Azing.

So that was definitely one reason why Gaiety's medicated paper didn't take off. But another part of it was that this is like a boo thing, right. You got the Sears robut catalog and the mail. It served a couple of purposes, one of which was unspoken, right, Yeah, like the mail. The mail delivery guy would just walk up and just like kind of hand it to the person and say, here's your catalog. Thanks, wink wink nudge. Just should last year a couple of months, alright. I was

wondering how long it would last. I mean, like, these things were a couple of hundred pages, Um, so I wonder how long it would last. But yes, most especially in rural America, that was toilet paper. That in corn cops. I wonder if there are are arguments to broke out in families like ma, it's winter and we're already to the tool section. Yeah, your own. I'm sure there's always been miserly jerks who yelled about using too much toilet paper. Um. So that was one reason that that gaiety had trouble

with his medicated paper. Right. Another part was that the abou right, no one wanted to talk about that, um, and he actually sold his thing as like medicine. It was meant to be u for the prevention or treatment of hemorrhoids, right, which obviously that would help, and it was. It was very much what we would consider the first

toilet paper, but um, it didn't take off. It wasn't until about thirty or forty years later that Clarence and e Irvin Scott Scott brothers whose name still appears on toilet paper rolls, got together and actually created the first toilet paper on a roll. Yeah. That changed everything, it really did. But apparently the shame, the stigma of of creating toilet paper was so much that they released their product in It wasn't until nineteen o two that they

finally acknowledged that it was there their product. Yeah, they were just a shame. Yeah. Uh, they didn't have to put their name on it, I mean no. And apparently they use some of the companies that their company owned to under Yeah. They really were like trying to to put some distance in between them and the toilet paper

they created. Yeah, I get it. They did manage to sell a lot of it though, because they were smart enough to market it to like hotels and drug stores and stuff, and so they sold a lot of it, not like direct to customer, right, and they said, you know your hotel needs this. Trust me, no one wants to talk about it, but just put these in your bathrooms and everyone will say great. And and again, like

it was. It worked kind of well. But then, um, toilet paper as a as we understand it today, really didn't become like a staple what what you would call an icon of American culture, frankly, until like three things happened from about the beginning of the twentieth century until about the nineteen thirties, right. And one of the first things was that America started getting indoor plumbing flushing toilets. That deal. I think it was because you can't use

corn cobs in that any longer. So this is largely in the city's um where where you would find indoor plumbing. Still in rural America, up to the thirties, people were still using corn cobs in the Sears and Robot catalog. That's when the second thing that that took place that changed everything happened. The Sears catalog went to a clay based glossy paper and no longer was it soft and absorbent any longer. It was slick and you you can't use that to wipe your bottom after pooping. That was

the second thing that happened. And lastly, the third thing that happened was um a company called the was it the Hubert Hubert Paper Company Hoberg Paper Company released a brand of toilet paper called Sharman, and they very very wisely branded it in such a way that this focused on it's femininity, it's softness, it's gentleness, and you could talk about how soft and gentle and wonderful this product was without talking about what it was actually used for,

which meant that now you could market it to the public.

And as a result, Charman took off. Yeah, I mean that that's sort of became the name in toilet paper for many years, uh, in no small part thanks to a man named Dick Wilson, who, from nineteen six to eighty five and more than five hundred TV commercials played the beloved Mr. Whipple George Whipple grocery store manager, who very famously would urge usually women in the commercials not to squeeze the charmon because apparently, from sixty four to

eighty five, women and grocery stores were compelled to squeeze toilet paper yeah constantly, always feels so nice and soft, which apparently did something wrong to the toilet paper. Well, yeah, you didn't want your toilet paper, that's who You bought a toilet paper for yourself so you could squeeze in the comfort of your own home. So at exact, John schure Focus actually came up with that tagline um or phrase, and the actor's original name was Ricardo the Googliemo. The

Googlielmo from from England. That did not anticipate that. I thought it was gonna say Rome, Italy. Another little known fact about Dick Wilson is that he is the father of Stephanie Balki's love interest in Perfect Strangers in real life. Yeah, that's his daughter. And another factoid is, uh, he was in Bewitch, the TV show. Yeah, he played the drunk that you'd see at the bar who just couldn't believe

the witchery he had just seen, Mr Whipple. Uh so did you say that he was in more than five hundred of those Sharman ads, Um, there was a point where he was. There was a pole that was taken in and found on that in America, he was the third most recognized person by Americans after Richard Nixon and Billy Graham. That's so America. That is a home run for an ad AD agency. That's just so America. The president, a preacher, and a toilet paper guy. Mr Whipple, I

love it. Do you want to take a break, Yeah, we'll take a break in. Um kind of bring us into the modern age of butt wiping. All right. So we're at a point now where Sharman has uh, well before that, uh, we were at a point where toilet paper was now being championed by plumbers by doctors as being a good thing. Sharman comes along said, man, this stuff is soft and don't squeeze it though, But boy, I know you want to Johnny Carson's joking about it on the Tonight Show. Yeah, that was that was kind

of a significant thing. Yeah, he said that there was And this was uh in nineteen seventy three when there were like gas shortages and energy shortages, and Johnny Carson made a joke about their being a toilet paper shortage, and people thought he was serious and apparently went out and like bought out grocery stores the next day. Yeah, and it was a self sustaining um. Yeah, when people when people ran out and bought it, it it created the shortage.

And then the successive waves of people came and saw for themselves that there was no toilet paper, so they panicked and they bought whatever they could, and apparently for weeks in some places there there was you couldn't find you couldn't buy toilet paper because it had been hoarded because of Johnny Carson's joke. Man, and he took it back. But you know, back in those days, it takes little while for people to get that information. Sure you been

on the Tonight Show, that's right. So, um, this one article you sent was great, the history one, which one you're said kind of the longer one. Oh the I think it was a Mental Floss article. What absolutely was? You're right, so I always love to use mental floss articles. Oh and by the way, we would be remiss if we didn't mention that Will and Mangus, who started Mental Floss are colleagues. Now, yeah they are. They have a podcast called Part Time Genius that's put out by our

venerable umbrella brand company. That's right. And I made a guest appearance, and I think you're probably in the queue as well. Uh. Yeah, I have not been approached, but I just assume I thank you. I think so, let's hope. So But anyway, congratulations to Will and Mango for Part Time Genius and go check it out. You cannot find it anywhere you find us stuff you should know. Yeah, so anyway, Uh, they made a pretty good point here at the end of it, which I never really consider dared.

But toilet paper is actually sort of a marker of where you are as a country. Uh, Like developing nations. When they start buying more toilet paper, that means they are getting more sanitary as a nation, means they have extra money to spend as a nation. Uh, that means that they're basically just sort of ah, their demographics are changing in a positive direction. Speaking from a neoliberal standpoint, that is correct, right, Yeah, but it's interesting and ever

thought about it. Like Brazil they've doubled the amount of toilet paper they've sold since two thousand four, Yeah, which is pretty significant considering, um, American toilet paper has plateaued, like we buy as much as we we possibly can. Were saturated, but I mean we're still spending six billion on it, you know. Yeah, and all over the world there are I mean, you know, when we went to Guatemala, we certainly saw the bucket, uh and the wall here

next to the toilets. There are still many places all over the world where you clean yourself with whatever water you have, and you and if you do have something to wipe yourself with, you don't even flush it down the toilet. You you know, you have a little water hose in a bucket maybe and kind of take care of business right or with There are some places, um where the plumbing just can't even handle actual toilet paper. You just throw that away as well. Yeah, you want

to talk about how toilet papers made? Yeah, I mean we can talk about it for sure, but I strongly encourage everyone to go uh to YouTube and watch a little six minute Discovery Channel bit from I think it was from How It's Made Canadian How It's Made? Oh, is that what it was? The lady just stopped short of saying, hey, I did kind of notice that. Yeah. It's amazing though, And I know I can obsessively watch manufacturing videos like all day and all night, but this

one was especially cool looking. Chuck, did you get the same sense where like you were just watching those huge rolls of toilet paper going over the rollers and just think like that is so delicate, Like all you have to do is lift your hand up and just completely throw production off. It was just I didn't feel like I wanted to do that, but I kept wondering, like, how in the world are these machines just rolling this toilet paper so fast without breaking? Yeah, it's it's pretty impressive.

So let's start at the beginning. The whole thing starts with a tree. Go out in your backyard, you cut down a tree, You take it to the toilet paper manufacturer, and you sell it to them for a few dollars, and then you leave. And since you've left, it's not your tree any longer because you took money for it. And what the toilet paper manufacturers are gonna do with what's now their tree, They're gonna grind it up into little chips. They're gonna soak it in some water. They're

gonna grind it up even more. And what you had have are um called pulp. Well, you gotta cook it first. You gotta cook it in a what's called a digester, and that turns it into pulp. Yeah. And if you look at this video, it's like it looks I mean, it kind of looks like wet toilet paper. Yeah, that's exactly what it looks like. And it but when it's dried, it crumbles really easily too, right, So um, that means you've got a few extra steps. The next step is

you gotta bleach it because you're removing the color. If you've ever seen like, um, that kind of grayish tan like um, like paper towels or something that you see in like an office building or jail or something like that, like that is what pulp looks like if you don't bleach it. Yeah, which I think the only reason they do that is because they found that people don't like their toilet paper to be anything other than white unless

it's Yeah, man, I've got to say. I found this um blog post from a site called History's Dumpster, and they have pictures of Northern brand toilet paper and light green, light blue and pink, and it was just like remember swallow my tongue from nostalgia. It was very cute. Yeah. Well, and I guess we should go ahead and say the reason they don't do that anymore is because, um, those inc dies they found good cause cancer in some cases. Uh,

they are expensive, more expensive to use dies. Uh. And yeah, it was basically a health thing. People like you don't need these plus and also the dies also kept m the toilet paper from breaking down as quickly too. Yeah. And they probably also looked and said, you know what, my poop doesn't look any better on baby blue than it does on white. No. But the the whole reason that they had those is because everybody loved to um color coordinate every room of their house in the seventies,

including the bathroom. Everything in the bathroom is bank so people would people would buy mauve toilet paper to go with their mauve bathroom or whatever. It is great, it was. That's so super seventies too, And that's just yet another reason that the seventies were hands down the greatest decade in the history of Humanity's pretty great. So one other thing, Chuck, there's a company called Renova and they actually sell colored

toilet paper again. Oh really Yeah, it's like seven seven euros and fifteen cents, which isn't that much less than it would be in dollars these days for six rolls. Okay, so we're in the factory. Where do you leave this? Uh? So we've made the pulp and we've bleached it. Now it's white. Then you take the pulp and you mix it with water and you've created a paper stock. That's right, and then you press it onto a screen. This one was this blew me away. Yeah, they pressed it onto

a screen. I guess you're you're draining a lot of the water. Uh's one reason? And well I guess that's the main reason, because what you're left with is that dry white product. Yeah. That that lady, the Canadian lady on how it's made, said that they hit them with a dryer when they're on that screen and it instantly drives it out. That's just amazing because you think of this stuff is so delicate that but they if you watch the process that they're they're pretty rough with it. Yeah.

So then well, concurrently, what's going on to we should say is they're also making the the cardboard rolls, which is kind of the tubes, you know, which is kind

of neat to watch that happen on its own. They just make this one long, continuous tube that they cut into like sixty in It probably depends on you know which company, but the one they feature, I think we're sixty inch tubes, which would then roll toilet paper around, so you would have basically a sixty inch roll giant roll of TP, right, which looks really neat, and then they glue it. That is definitely glue that they used to keep it, uh you know, not tucked, but affixed

a fixed thank you, so it doesn't unravel. Yeah, like when you when you rip that toilet paper off at the very beginning, that that's a glue that's holding it together, right, And then they have these circular saws that come through and just cut that that big long roll into several small rolls. That was the coolest part, it was. And then um, they can be individually wrapped or put in packs of like four or six or a million UM and then you sell them. It's it is a very

cool short video. I could watch that stuff forever. So that's if you're making it UM from scratch. There's also recycled toilet paper, which isn't quite as popular here in the United States because it's a little coarser, the fibers are a little longer with with toilet paper. The shorter the fiber, the softer the toilet paper is going to

be UM. And then they also add some proprietary chemical combinations UM that include like extruders that kind of pull the fibers out of like a horizontal position and just kind of tough them a little bit. Uh. And then they'll put in like emboss and stuff like that too, which kind of gives a quilted feel. So all of that is to make it softer and to make it um more grabby grabs the poop right out of your bottom. Yeah, And those fibers is sort of a balance. They're a

delicate balance. They're walking because they want it to be soft, but they also want it to be strong enough because if it's too flimsy, like the junk. You get it. Uh, you know public restrooms and your office probably you know that everyone probably has a nightmare story about their fingers busting through that stuff, which is worst case scenario, uh

when it's clean up time. So they're trying to basically walk that balance of soft and strong, right, And one way they've done that is to add more um layers applies. So apparently it's up to six plies. I didn't know that. I didn't either. I can't imagine you could. You couldn't even fold that. Yeah, what does that feel like? I wonder I'm probably a cloud. You're just wiping your bottom with a cloud. And that In ninety two that started as St Andrew. St Andrew's paper Mill in England invented

the two ply. Uh and I didn't know. This is another nice little tidbit um Until the nineteen thirties they would market toilet paper as splinter free like that. They would they were forced to, right because apparently that was a thing. So, um, that's kind of that's where I was going with recycled toilet paper. It's kind of the new splinter splintery toilet paper, which I mean compared to the toilet papers of your recycled toilet papers just completely luxurious.

But compared to actually like six ply super soft stuff that you can get, it is a little rough. Um. And again the reason why is the fibers are a

little longer. And it follows the same process, but there's a step at the beginning where you take all these different papers and you put them in and mash them together in some water and you inject some air and it creates foam and the ink and the paper sticks to the foam and the foam floats, so then they just skim the foam off the top and you just remove the ink and then you start the rest of the process making a pulp. Again, what a world. It

is pretty amazing. All right, let's take another break and we're gonna come back and wrap it up with some more amazing facts about t P. Another thing we forgot to mention before we broke was the you said that the embosed ones right like with the whatever, the scallop shell or whatever you find um, they say that. Another reason they do that is just so they know that that's their toilet paper, just to differentiate themselves from other brands. Oh yeah, I never really thought about that. Yeah, but

Scott's like, Noah, that's ours. You can see the scalop shell right there. Yeah. Although I don't know what there's is, there was definitely scalloping in that. Um how it's made video? Yeah? Uh all right, So can we talk about the over or under thing? Yes? So everybody's seen that Simpsons where margin Homer go to the spa for a day and Child Protective Services ends up coming by and they write a report and they call the Simpsons house a squalid hell hole point out that the toilet paper is hung

in an improper overhand fashion. Um. So apparently, I'm not sure who wrote that episode weighed in on that, but they're in the minority because apparently only do the underhang. I'm a definite overhanged person. What about you? I'm an overhanger for sure. Um apparently. And I remember seeing this

online a few years ago. It kind of went around that was a guy named Seth Wheeler of Albany Perforated Wrapping Paper Company submitted a patent for the first perforated toilet paper on a roll and that showed the the over position and everyone was like, but it said it's subtle. This was the first one that's how it was supposed to be, which really proved nothing. No, I mean, it's

still preference. But there are definite pros and cons of the whole thing, right, Yeah, But here's the thing for me, it's a lot of the pro of the pros they list as UM, like your little kid or your dog won't be tempted to go yanket if it's UM in

the under position, right, presumably because it's hidden. No, because it's so if you're a little kid or a doggie and you come up, if you if it's in an overhand fashion, if it's overhanging, you can just come up and start slapping downward on the toilet paper roll and it will just come right offhang. You know, it just stays. It just flips around and stays together. Yes, it does. You have to pull downward on the toilet paper if it's going from an underhang to get it off the roll.

If you slap downward on the front top of the toilet paper roll, that that it's never gonna come loose. To see, trifical force holds it in place. I think I disagree on this notion. I think that's presuming that you're using the old school built into the wall toilet paper dispenser, No, because I have the one where it sits on a free standing stand, and if I put my hand on the back of that thing and just give it a spin, it will come unspoiled. I see,

I see what you mean. Yeah, if you approached it that way, then then all of a sudden, now you've changed your perspective down. I know, it's all crazy. Yeah, I just I haven't seen that many of the Uh they're kind of out of fashion now. The ones that are built into the wall, are they? Yeah, you don't see those as much anymore. No, I have I have mind coming off of the wall. It's not built into it, but it's it's you can only yeah, like you can't

get to it from behind. Yeah, the classic ceramic holder built onto the wall, right, I don't have that. Although my bathroom is mauv is it really? No? I wish it's salmon that. I would love to have a color, a color coordinated bathroom. I know you would. That would be sweet. Um. Yeah, we just have those stands where the toilet papers all stacked up a up a post, yeah, and then then in the top it's got a little l shaped thing and the dude hangs on there. Yeah,

we just have one that like drills into the wall. Yeah, so it's not okay, but it's it's the same thing. I can't get to the backside of it. Yeah, see I can get to the back of mine, so okay. But if you are using a kind that's a fixed to the wall, then that if you if you have it underhanged, you can't. You can't just slap it pretty easily, right, Well, that seems like a it's kind of a minor thing to really champion as a reason. Yeah, especially if you

don't have kids or mischievous dogs. Right. Yeah, my dog has never done that, and the worst dogs right Okay, now you don't, well one of them. So um, you've got you've got that. And that's that's for the underhang, for the overhang. One of the other things about the underhang is that you can't see the unsightly end of the toilet paper roll. Right, that's not insightly, No, I agree, And in fact, there's a whole book out there, um

you my sister got it for it's pretty awesome. It's called the Toilet Paper or Gami, and it teaches you all sorts of different ways to like fold the end of a toilet paper roll to make it. Yeah, and you you can just wake up one day and there it's all nice and fold and you're like, where am I there? Rits, Oh no, I'm at my house still, and just surprised Emily not even tell her, I think

for sure. And then when she goes what it turns around you're just holding the book in front of you with a huge smile and your face saying the new chapter in our life. Yeah, and she says pooping. Why are you in the bathroom all right? Get out? Yes, yes, Emily, Yes, speaking of get Out. I just saw it last night, finally, what do you think? It was great? And I got Emily to watch it and she was reticent. She loved it. Yeah,

and that's really not her jam either. I just don't see how you could not ultimately leave that movie feeling like pretty great, pretty happy that you saw it. But there are some pretty scary aspects to it too. Yeah, it was like a good straight up horror movie. Yeah, I called I called all the twists though, Oh yeah, yeah, I just and she was like, oh wow, you kind of nailed that one. Did you call the bad guy from Billy Madison being the bad guy Billy was he

and Billy Madison? Yeah, Eric, I don't know if I saw Billy Madison. That's another one of those like what was I doing not seeing Tommy Boy and Billy Madison? Yeah, I think that was in my like, oh, I'm watching art films. Only got you? I got you? Uh anyway, sorry, get out? Highly recommended. Yeah, I agreed finally by me. So back to the overhand underhand thing, which, if you can believe it, we're still talking about. There is one thing in overhang, aside from the delightful toilet paper or gami,

you can do. I think I think definitely says um s overhang. In an underhang, if you have a toilet roll holder up against the wall, you are inevitably going to brush your knuckles up against the wall of your bathroom to grab the toilet paper. That's something you don't want to do because if you leave the lid of your toilet open when you flush an aerosol eyes cyclone of p in poop goes all over your bathroom, including

your bathroom walls. So if you cannot touch your bathroom walls when you're getting toilet paper, so much the better. Well that's not a problem for me. But you know that people around here behind your back call you big knuckles. I know, big hairy knuckles. It's been your nickname for years. I know, I know shut it's here. When I hear I just pretend like I haven't heard. All right, So

let's talk about the future. Let's wind this up with like you said, Americans, apparently, um like you can pride this gun from my cold dead hand type of thing. Except it's toilet paper. Well it's it's toilet paper to right in one hand. Uh. A lot of other countries, especially you're in Europe and Japan have roundly sided with the bidet. Yeah, which I researched the bidet a little bit because I'm like, how do you even use a bidet?

I've seen him before. And a true biday is you'll have a toilet and then next to that you'll have a toilet, but it doesn't have a lid, and there's like some um faucet knobs and everything in there, and you'll turn it on and like water comes up out of the bottom. So a bidet is actually French for

small horse. And the reason they call it that is, because you're supposed to straddle the bidet like you would be riding a horse basically, right, and then you turn on the water and adjust it just how you want to the temperature you want, and then you adjust yourself so that it's getting those spots that it needs to get. Turn it off, dry off, wash your hands, and you're

done right. And the bidet, actually that biday I just described, the porcelain fixture that goes next to the toilet was actually Americanized, Like the Americans came up with that version of the bidet and still didn't catch on in America,

but Europe, where it had already been invented before. This is like the improved version of it went nuts for this Americanized version, and it just kind of got lost to time that the Americans were the ones who gave Europe the modern bidet, and we just never took it on ourselves. Well, it's definitely if you have that style, that's definitely an extra expense because you have to have that fully plumbed and uh, you have to have the space for it, you know, like it's not a cheap

thing if you want to get the full deal. No, it's not, but like you have and like I have, Um, you can just basically just us as an extra hose that comes out of your already existing water supply and goes into your toilet seat. And again the expense is not utterly outrageous to get one of these. You get a quality when it's probably gonna last a while, especially if you get a Japanese one. Um. But one of the reasons why around the world bi days are so prevalent,

Like in Japan, six restrooms have bi days. In Venezuela, I didn't know this have bidets actually, Um. One of the reasons why people are behind them so much is because I know I heard that to you, Um, they use way less water than toilet paper does. Oh like the manufacturing of toilet paper. Yeah, so get this man, this is a scientific American blog posts I found average bidet use is going to take about an eighth of a gallon of water to get yourself where you want

to be, right, which is clean. Yeah. To make a roll of toilet paper one role, it takes thirty seven gallons of water, one point three kilowatt hours of electric, one and a half pounds of wood. So in America we use thirty six point five billion rolls of toilet paper every year. That re wires fifteen million trees, It uses four hundred and seventy three billion, five hundred and eighty seven million, five hundred thousand gallons of water, and

requires seventeen point three tarawatts of electricity. Now I don't know how much taro wat is, but brother, that sounds like a lot of electricity. Man, that's disheartening. I'm gonna get my bidet going. It really is, and it makes it really kind of makes you think like, oh, toilet papers and an environmental catastrophe, so maybe a bidet is

is preferable. Well. And the other thing, if you use the wet wipes, um, regardless of their flush ability on the package, they they are not great for the environment. Like it might not clog up your toilet right there, but they don't break down like toilet paper does. Um. Did you see that Consumer Reports short video on it? No? Oh, it's like forty seconds long. And they're like, this is

what toilet paper looks like when you flush. And they had just kind of like a little whirlpool going in a beaker of glass of glass, beaker of water, and they dropped in some toilet paper and then immediately broke apart into five pieces. Right. They did that to wipe a flushable wipe, no less, and it did nothing, and they're like, well, let's try something harder. They put into a kitchen aid mixer with water and let it sit

for ten minutes. It didn't break up at all. So they don't really break up or no one really knows how long it takes to degree, but they certainly don't break up like they actually grew in size and swelled up and turned into Nicolas cage. That's right. So the fact that this stuff uh isn't good for your your sewer system, and certainly if you have a septic system,

it's probably reason enough not to always use wipes. Um. Some people apparently, uh they say, if you know, if you have an issue and you're maybe hemorrhoid or something, then you might want to use a wipe for a little while. Um, you know, follow your your heart, Like there's chemicals a lot of that stuff. Yeah, there's this.

We found a self article about women using wipes or um regular toilet paper because we're creeps and we read articles like that, and um, the I think a a guy incologist was saying, you know, I think it was a dermatologist. He said that, Um, whenever a patient comes in and says, I got irritation down there, I think it's you know, probably from these wipes I'm using most of the time. It is because they have like aloe

in them that someone might be allergic to. They might have like antibacterial stuff that somebody could be allergic to. And he just prescribed using basic, cheap toilet paper instead. Yeah, and um, with with with kids and babies, you know, when you're doing the work, uh, doing all that work, you obviously are gonna use wipes. Um, but I will buzz market this brand that we use water wipes and it's just water. What it's just it's just water that's

the only ingredient. Oh. And I was like, it's not like, you know, we're anti fragrance in my house anyway, but it doesn't have fragrances or chemicals or anything like that. And then it's just I'll buzz market them all day

because that's a good product, water wipes. Oh. One other thing we'd be remiss and saying, um that if you are a Muslim, you use something called a lota and I would strongly encourage everybody go read a great Vice article called a Muslims Guide to Anal Hygiene that explains lotas, which is basically like carrying your own pot of water to clean yourself off with. We're having one next to your your toilet. Oh one more thing too. You sent this to me. It is not your imagination. Toilet paper

is getting smaller. Uh. It's decreased by about a half an inch narrower square. Yeah, four and a half inches and now to half an inch narrower and shorter. They were saying the same thing. Uh. And not only that, but they're making See this is how they get you. They make it a little bit smaller, they increase the size of the tube, and so you're actually getting less paper, but they're still charging the same or more per year. And it's actually yeah, remember we said it's going up

by about two percent a year. So but you're getting less paper. And so here's how they get you. They are increasing the size of the cardboard tube. They're making it narrower, so you're actually getting less toilet paper now actual paper for either the same price or more money. Because I think you said prices are going up about

two each year. So these companies that make toilet paper selling usually paper towels as well, and napkins paper napkins, uh, And apparently those are on the decline, so they're they're kind of ripping you off by juicing you with the toilet paper rolls now. Even though they call it like a double roll, it's pretty much what used to be a single roll. So that that's my toilet paper soapbox. You want to start a bloody revolution in the streets, let that word get out right. Yeah, I got nothing else.

I got nothing else either, Man, toilet paper has been done. If you want to know more about toilet paper, you can type those words eventually into the search part how stuff works dot com. You can also check it out a mental flass. Just go onto the internet, go watch some charm and commercials. Go look at pictures of um of colored toilet paper from the seventies. You'll love it. And since I said the seventies, it's time for listener mail.

What we call this proper pronouns? Hey guys, in your last episode on standardized Patients, you read a listener mail. At the end, you weren't sure what pronouns to use for someone. Uh, they them is always a good way to go when you don't know. Maybe it's because I'm twenty two, or maybe it's because I grew up in monest Story, but I've always known they them to be plural or singular. Uh. I know that's not familiar for some. Josh also suggested the word cis gender or a neutral gender,

and I just wanted to give a friendly correction. The word cis gender refers to someone who is not transgender and identifies with the gender they were assigned at birth. Cis being derived from the Latin prefix cis meaning on the side of, as opposed to trans meaning across. From the neutral term uh to use now is a gender the prefix a being without though that's just one of many terms being used these days. Thanks for everything you bring to my days. I love how much I learned

from you, guys. I hope I can return the favor here your friendly neighborhood queer person, Chase, Hey, Chase, thank you for that. That was awesome. Yeah, we certainly try to always use the right terminology. It's we dropped the ball sometimes. It's hard to keep up sometimes, but we always will take those corrections and try and do it right the future. Yes, we will never ever refer to L G B T q I A as alphabet soup. Does people say that? Yeah, man, it's the worst. It's

just like just a dismissive. Yeah, I hate that. Man Joves crazy. If you hear somebody saying that, set him straight, John, Josh and Chuck, Josh and Chuck, I'll get on board. Um and Jerry got that right, buddy. Jerry was over here waving like, hey, hey, hey, don't forgive me choose stomping madly. Uh Well, if you want to get in touch with this, like Chase did, you can tweet to us at Josh, I'm Clark or s Y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook, dot com, slash Charles W.

Chuck Bryant, or slash stuff you Should Know. You can send us an email the Stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot com and has always joined us at our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how Stuff Works dot com. M