Toilet Paper Trail

So what is it with girls and toilet paper? I didn't think that gender mattered when it came to the consumption of Charmin, but as I'm slowly learning.....it does.

You can't possibly have insight into any of this from the beginning. Boys and girls both start in diapers. And depending on their tolerance of natural milk, regular Similac, or soy, the pace in which you buy Pampers is all about the same.

The truth about toilet paper use doesn't begin to surface until the first vestiges of potty training. And even then, any patterns that develop are too premature to write a thesis.

But something happens around 8 years old that seems to separate the girls from the boys. Forget puberty, hormones, training bras, and facial hair as common distinguishing factors. You could actually tell someone's gender by merely looking at how often you need to remove that magic rod that somehow keeps the toilet paper in place.

You see, boys and eventually men, usually take a little longer on the bowl, but when they're done it's just a mere few squares and they're out of there. Girls, on the other hand, are much faster about their daily business, but when they're finished, they treat the toilet paper like soap and practically bathe with it.

I live this any time my daughters visit me. I've never had formal training as a plumber, but I've now used a plunger more times in the last 6 months than I have in my entire life. And let me tell you, it isn't the highlight of my week. I keep thinking I'm on some reality show called, "Man vs Toilet, " and let's just say I don't have a winning record.

I think my problem is I over analyze how the damn toilet became so clogged in the first place. Two minutes in the bathroom turns into half a roll in the toilet? How does this happen? Their bodies just aren't that big. But somehow, they manage to send the toilet into an angioplasty. So, I plunge.

But some jobs are too big for the plunger. A few times I literally had to fish the toilet paper out wearing a pair of gloves like a surgeon. This is usually the moment when I ask myself how I could be wearing a Brooks Brothers suit during the day and suddenly switch to a Hazmat suit at night.

I recently relayed this story to a colleague at work and he expressed similar horror stories with his girls. Apparently, I'm not the only father with serial flushers in the house.

Last week, I took the kids to Washington D.C. for a few days. It wasn't only for the educational value. It was also to give my pipes a break. And it gave me a few extra days off as well.

Despite being in a hotel, the girls were up to their usual habits. The only difference this time?

I let the Westin deal with it.