Bonnet Bots Untrue News Service
A South Asian woman, who was learning self-quarantine do’s-and-don’t s from news channels in other regions affected by the Covid-19 coronavirus, bought 173 rolls of toilet paper, stuffing them into every corner of her house. “I thought they must be important, given that they are running out from shelves of stores worldwide”, stated Kagazi Gola, who had also stocked up on sanitizer, masks, and prepaid mobile data packs. She confided to the Blue Bonnet Bot that only after the 165th roll, she started googling why toilet paper was being hoarded worldwide. Now she doesn’t know what to do with so much of it, after realizing its true purpose elsewhere.
“I was surprised that people don’t use water or squirt-guns in developed countries” stated the naive Kagazi, finding it hard to believe that they felt the process of cleaning was complete with just dry paper. “People are going ga-ga over how to wash hands with soap and water, but use dry paper for important areas? I have even heard doctors say that we need to protect all openings, like mouth, nose and eyes from infection. But for washing important stuff, they don’t even use water? What do they put on the paper? Sanitizer? Like toothpaste on a brush?” She was aghast to know that sanitizer is not used in this task. “Why are they hoarding sanitizer then, if hand wash is supposed to be done with soap and water only?” She was now doubly confused.
Though hard to believe, in ancient days, before man could make toilet paper, all humans used water for washing, though not through the kind of device shown in the image. This device is, however, still used in many places around the world, even as late as 2020, and is even rumored to be more hygienic than toilet paper. There are reports that using water means that there is no leftover bad stuff, whereas toilet paper just smears the stuff around, though removing most of it. However, most people believe that the convenience of the ‘dry cleaning’ is worth the slight smell in your undergarment and the occasional bruises to soft skin.
Bonnet Bot wanted to understand why Kagazi’s country had toilet paper at all in its stores in the first place, as they do have water ‘bidets’. The Bot was never given such training as he never has to use a bathroom. Kagazi helped him to understand, saying “Many of us in South Asia do have toilet paper in our bathrooms, but that is just for stuff like keeping the bathroom dry, cleaning things here and there, using for infinite tasks related to kids, and to make our foreign-settled friends feel at home when they visit, as we know they somehow need it. But I wasn’t sure what exactly they do with it, and never imagined that’s the ONLY thing they use for the task. I have now heard their bathrooms don’t even have a water outlet near the pots…these people are crazy”.
The local store was refusing to take back paper ‘handled’ by people, and Kagazi now has toilet paper everywhere in her home. She is now thinking of every possible use for it, and even had a dream that everything else ran out in the Covid-19 quarantine, and the only remaining organic thing closest to food was toilet paper.
One of the dreams Kagazi got after the realization of unwanted abundance of toilet paper
At the time of going to press, toilet paper had run out from most South Asian stores, and Bonnet Bot was still investigating how this could happen in a region using water for the important task.
Image credits: Woman in mask: DigitalMammoth/Shutterstock.com; Paper in suitcase: Erik McLean / Unsplash.com; Paper on plate: Vlada Karpovich / Pexels.com; Cat image: Edbo23 / Pixabay.com; Bidet Image: Golf Bress / Shutterstock.com
