Heyyyyyy!!!! I'm back. I would sit here and say that I haven't been writing a lot of blogs because I've been all over the world on a book tour, but that is sadly not true. First of all, Covid is running through the country like a fat kid at a buffet. Second of all, I'm not going to bullshit, I really haven't been promoting my book that much. (Shameless plug-- Go buy my book! If you bought it once, buy it again for your Mom, Dad, or Baby Momma/Baby Daddy)
Why? Because of life, homie! Again, I'm a single Dad who works two jobs and I have a side hustle. And when I'm not doing my real job, I'm reffing basketball this year and getting my 20,000 steps in per day. And while that many steps is doing wonders for getting that Covid Quarantine weight off (if you don't have Covid weight gain by now, then you're better than most folks) it tends to leave me pretty damn exhausted at night. And I need every bit of my wittiness and humor to keep y'all reading this shit. So ya' boy is pretty mentally exhausted.
At the moment, there isn't a lot of reffing of sports going on right now since the state of Iowa that I live in is currently on hiatus right now. Soooo, I'm dropping some blog heat on you all today.
Every once in a while, I think about just how much my life has changed since I became a full time Dad. When you're a non-custodial parent, you're just that cool dude that kicks it on every other weekend. I'm not saying that role isn't important. Shout out to all the Moms and Dads who are every other weekend warriors out there. Keep doing your thing! However, as the custodial parent, you have to deal with the mundane everyday issues like feeding those mouths, making sure school gets done, and kicking an occasional ass here and there to make sure they stay in line.
But those are the big things. However, it's crazy to notice how many small things are changed by me having my girls full time. And the biggest smallest thing that I've recently noticed is the amount of toilet paper that gets used in my house on a weekly basis.
Now, at this point, you may be asking yourself, "Is this dude going to write a whole ass blog post about toilet paper?" The answer is, "Yep. I am." Because it is a change that I did not realize that would be real expensive for me. If I had to write a manual about things to expect as a single Dad, then the constant lack of toilet paper would be chapter two. Right behind, "Effective Ways to Spy On Your Kids".
When I was a kid, there was me, my younger sister, and my Mom and Dad. So two females and two males. And growing up, my parents weren't exactly Claire and Cliff Huxtable from "The Cosby Show". They were more like a step above James and Florida Evans from "Good Times". The only difference being that we didn't live in the projects in Chicago and I didn't have Janet Jackson stopping by my house every other episode. We had love and what we needed to survive, but little of anything else.
Therefore, the toilet paper that was normally in the house was normally of the one-ply variety. And when that's all you know growing up, then you think that is what everyone in the world is using. I didn't know that there was a whole two-ply world out there. The softness and the comfort of two-ply was something that was completely foreign to me. When there commercials about "softer" tissue out there, I had no idea what that meant. I thought that was one of the following three things:
A) Some shit that was just made up to sell toilet paper.
B) Something that only rich people bought.
C) Some shit that only White people bought.
(Actually you can probably throw B & C in together)
Let me give you an example of another such thought process. When I was growing up, I thought that pizza delivery was some made up shit. Why? Because mysteriously, no pizza places ever delivered to anywhere in Gary, Indiana. When you would call a place for pizza, either you had to go there and pick it up or they would say that my house was outside of the delivery area. Even though the pizza spot was like two miles away. Now, while that could be attributed to the high costs of gas in the 1980's and 1990's. I'm more willing to attribute that unwillingness to deliver pizza to the high crime rate that Gary had at that same time period.
So when I moved out of Gary, not only did I discover that I could get a pizza delivered to my house, I also fell head first into the two-ply toilet paper revolution. (I also realized that not every gas station worker in America did their job behind bullet proof glass). Now, I probably was about 50 years late to the party, however, better late than never right???
And since then, my ass has been living the middle class two-ply life.
However, when I was a single man, I could buy a four pack of toilet paper and it would last me about a solid month. At least! I mean when it's only me, and I only use toilet paper fifty percent of the time when I go to the bathroom, then it was nothing to spend $5- $8 dollars for such a delicacy. When I was alone, I didn't have much food in my fridge. The only beverage I had was Kool-Aid and beer. And there was also a bottle of hot sauce and a jar of jelly. Them was the good ol' days.
These days, whew chile. I'm lucky to get through a whole week of a four pack of toilet paper. So I had upgrade my toilet paper spending game. Now when I go to the store, we normally buy the eight or twelve pack of toilet paper. And hear me good reader...that's shit is expensive! Like $12- $20 bucks for the good shit. Who knew that good toilet paper was this much money? I did not. Toilet paper out here like crack prices. And then, I felt some type of way because even though I'm still only using toilet paper fifty percent of the time I go to the bathroom, I have two females in my house who use toilet paper EVERY GODDAMN TIME they go to the bathroom.
I tried to get away with the one-ply toilet paper thing like my Dad did back when I was a kid. Shiiiitttttt, I'm surprised my kids didn't call DHS on me. I'm sure that my kids probably had a conversation like this:
Ayanna: "Did you see what kind of toilet paper Daddy bought?"
Amanyi: "Yeah, it's the cheap stuff. It don't feel as good."
Ayanna: "This nigga trippin'."
So they came to me and explained to me that it hurt, and it wasn't as nice. And then they hit me with that look that little girls give their Daddy when they want to get their way. Sometimes the look works. Sometimes it doesn't.
That time it worked.
So here we are. Spending about $50 bucks a month in toilet paper.
Covid has our country doing strange shit. People thinking scientists who spend their whole lives studying disease are lying to them. A lot of us divided through racial, socio-economic, and political lines. And then there was that strange point earlier in the year where some of you all bought up all the damn toilet paper. It was easier to find a Cabbage Patch Doll in 1987 than it was to find toilet paper back in April of 2020. This is truly the strangest time that I have lived through in my 42 1/2 years on this planet.
However, before you go on your next toilet paper hoarding binge, please remember that there is a Dad out there in Iowa who is trying give his daughters the two-ply toilet paper life that he never had. And don't be a selfish asshole who buys up all the toilet paper. Otherwise, I'm sending my girls to your house to use your two-ply toilet paper EVERY GODDAMN TIME they go to the bathroom.
Read and discuss.
Comments