Doctor’s Diary November 17, 2020: COVID-19/BLM: The roll (role) of toilet paper

(Snippets from the frontline)

COVID-19/BLM:  The roll (role) of toilet paper

Here we go again!  Grab the toilet paper!

Early in this pandemic, toilet paper quickly disappeared from store shelves.  Who knows why, but it is probably deeply ingrained in our national psyche.

Toilet paper was around for our last pandemic in 1918.  Not the two-ply perfumed-type we have today, but one that advertised it was “splinter free.”  Yikes!

Toilet paper does have a history a thousand years old.  But it wasn’t always paper, using sand, stones, leaves, and even hands.  (Hopefully they had hand sanitizer then!) 

Ancestors 100 years from now will analyze this phenomena and still not have answers.  Today’s babies and children when they become “centennials” will recall “I remember those days of deprivation!”  Others will laugh and say “we got a bidet!”

Make sure you have an adequate supply and don’t be caught short.  If there is a drought, a bidet won’t help.  Stock up on Fall leaves, sand, or organic dirt might be the new vogue.

For seniors confined to their homes, with still many citizens not wearing masks or socially distancing, I have some advice:  Hoard!!!

Gene Uzawa Dorio, M.D.

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