Has T.P. become the new White Gold? In the last few weeks, the once mundane household commodity, has become a rare, highly sought out treasure. Rumors of T.P. shortages erupted on social media. Panicked shoppers grabbed up every sheet they could find. 
T.P. entrepreneurs swept up large caches of the stuff, selling it on the internet at inflated prices.
It wasn’t just an American phenomena. Friends in the Netherlands and Vietnam confirm a similar panic. Australia seems to be hit particularly hard.
We all know the sinking feeling of going to the grocery store only to find the once bulging shelves barren. We turn to the paper towels – same thing. What about napkins? They’ll do in an emergency. You pick up a pack and immediately feel relief and a touch of superiority that you have outwitted the herd.
We have developed new tactics to secure the prize. We go on foraging trips to different stores. Husbands and wives split up the targets. Texts between the two T.P. commandos share critical intel. We shop at different times. Maybe going in at 7:00 a.m before the maddening crowd arises will be successful. That approach was usually disappointing. It was especially stressful when you saw someone grabbing the last pack.
Has there ever been a world-wide T.P. panic before? Yes, In December 1973, Johnny Carson, the king of late night TV, read an article that predicted a shortage of commercial T.P. He made a few jokes and moved on. The panic, starting in Japan, began the next morning. How did it end? Simple reassurances were made that there was no shortage. The panic ended quickly – sanity returned.
What if the unthinkable really does happen – that we actually do run out of the “White Gold”? What did people do before T.P. was invented?
The people of the ancient Middle East used broken pieces of pottery. The Romans put a sponge on a stick, plopping the “tersorium” into buckets of salt water or vinegar between uses. The Japanese developed the “chugi” – polished bamboo sticks. The Chinese advanced the level of comfort by attaching a cloth to the bamboo. The Vietnamese doused themselves with water.
Frontier Americans were not especially inventive. They used what was available – moss, rags, hay, hemp, wood shavings, leaves and, of course, corn cobs. The Sears and Roebuck catalog became famous in the 1880s as a dual purpose product. You could take it with you to read and then… The Farmer’s Almanac modified its product to meet its consumers needs by placing a hole in the corner so that it could be put on peg in the privy.
Not surprisingly, the ever innovative Chinese are credited with inventing T.P in the medieval times. It was a large sheet of paper that could be torn off to meet the need. Joseph Gayettty manufactured the first commercially available T.P. He called it “The Therapeutic Paper” because each individual sheet was soaked in aloe. Zeth Wheeler was awarded a patent in 1871 for inventing the roll with perforated sheets. In 1928 Charmin advertised its paper to be “soft.” Just a few years later, Northern guaranteed its product to be “splinter free.”
The United States is the hegemon of toilet paper (loo paper in England) consumption.
According to one controversial study, the average American consumes 141 rolls each year. Environmentalists decry our overindulgence, arguing it contributes to global warming. Entertainer Cheryl Crow recommended that we limit ourselves to one sheet per visit. Industry spokesmen have poo-pooed the research, claiming that it grossly exaggerated the numbers.
They add that wood chips (a waste product, if you will) from tree farmed lumber are the source of the product, not wood from old growth forests.
One final question: In this age of scarcity will we ever see another house get T.P.ed?
Gary Knepp is Clermont County’s honorary historian. He is a practicing attorney who lives in Miami Township. Knepp’s website is www.garyknepp.com.