Okay, I’ve been away for a while. It’s been STUPID busy. Fall is crazy time for people who work in health promotion. Two words: Cold & Flu. Yeah, baby, I’m working on getting people to wash their hands.

Last weekend, Adam was away in San Diego and I went to refill the toilet paper in both bathrooms. I thought we had a package in the closet, but alas! We did not. We had nary a square to spare (actually, that’s not true: It turned out that we had 3 rolls, but the panic was probably a good motivator to actually buy some TP before we hit an emergency situation).

I remembered to stop and pick up some toilet paper on my way home from my big sister’s birthday party on Sunday night and this is when I discovered something about myself: I’m embarrassed to buy toilet paper. It doesn’t matter what you call it, if you try to pretty up the name with “hygienic” or whether it’s called “bathroom tissue”. Or, as Adam so eloquently just put it, bum paper. No matter the name, I’m mortified when I have to carry it.

Why you ask? Well, my friends, because then people will know I—wait for it—go to the bathroom. HORROR OF HORRORS! I don’t really know what exactly it is that makes me want to grab the paper and run.

The Wall of Shame.

Also, why is toilet paper sold in impossibly large and awkward packages, WITH NARY A CONVENIENT HANDLE, MIGHT I ADD, which you will drop when the hole you poked through so as to carry the effing behemoth of humiliation tears, and then when you bend to pick it up, you drop everything else you’re carrying, thus drawing the attention of EVERYONE IN THE WORLD STORE? Why is the only effective way of carrying an unwieldy parcel of plastic-wrapped sheepishness, roughly the size of André the Giant, to hug it to yourself like it’s your saviour, or at least the way you wished you could’ve hung onto your first slow-dance with your crush in high school?

Honestly. This is stupid. It reminds me of when I was a teenager and the thought of buying feminine products was enough to make me seriously contemplate the benefits of running away and living in the woods like a savage. Because that would be less embarrassing than buying stuff that every female human needs, obviously.

This seems like a great place to live. No judgment from

Come on, Bay. Everybody poops. There is literally a book on the matter. People are not looking at me, thinking, she needs toilet paper because she’s disgusting. What an animal. I mean, seriously, the guy in front of me was buying stool softener, which is at least a 12 on the 10-point scale of embarrassing gastrointestinal purchases, right?

I need to get over myself.

For now, though, I can rest assured that I bought two massive packages, so I can at least postpone the next embarrassing purchase until I can pawn the chore off on Adam. Of course, carrying both packages made it really look like I had a problem…