You’d think, as Jen from St. Louis did, that this carefully typed message (from the public toilet at the Golden Gate Bridge), is indisputably good advice.

But as Kim observed while studying abroad on the Caribbean island of St. Maarten, there’s an exception (explosion?) to every rule.

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Well…lots of stuff.

And yet, somehow, the employees at this office in Edmonton still can’t quite make TP happen. (Maybe wrestling grizzlies is more their forte?)

Perhaps a visual aid (like this one from a Los Angeles apartment share) would be helpful?

Or maybe just a bit more encouragement would push someone over the edge?

(Probably not, though.)

related: Five approaches to TP maintenance

Which is your favorite ode to replacing the roll?

Entry #1, from Baltimore?

Entry #2, from New Orleans?

or Entry #3, from Long Island City?

related: Scatological poetry slam

Hey, look — it’s almost the entire 12-step program in one note! I especially like the abridged version: “To the idiot who stole: the world is your oyster.”

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When someone starts hiding the formerly communal toilet paper, that’s typically the beginning of the end.

Exhibit a) From Liz in Brooklyn, New York: “My old roommate was a huge pain for a lot of reasons, but what really did it for me was when she would finish the roll of toilet paper and then hide the new roll in her room so only she could use it.” Before moving out, Liz left her roomie with this parting gift.

Exhibit b) From BK in Kansas City, Missouri: “My roommate wanted us to buy separate toilet paper because he thought I used a lot, which seemed kind of ridiculous to me. Then, when he ran out of toilet paper he would use mine. I took my toilet paper out of the bathroom so he couldn’t use it anymore. Then he wrote me a passive aggressive note saying I was passive-aggressive.”

Exhibit c) From LJ at Mississipi State University: “I have no idea why my roommate felt the need to hide the toilet paper  — it wasn’t like I was using it *excessively* or anything. A few days after this happened, we had to have a meeting mediated by the Residence Director, because they were pretty sure we were going to kill each other.”

related: I’m not here to wipe your dirty butt.

Five approaches to toilet paper maintenance

Writes Brittney in California: “Apparently, my mom’s boyfriend was stuck with an insufficient amount of toilet paper, and being passive aggressive (because he really is) he decides to write a note about it and stick it on the mirror, rather than confront her.”

Mom’s response?

And, in the end….everybody loses!

related: I’m not here to wipe your dirty butt

“Replace the roll”?  Fair enough. Any special requests after that, though, I’m not so sure about. As our submitter in Lexington, Kentucky writes: “Does that extra .34-second step really cause your day to go so horribly?”

On the flipside…don’t flush ‘em, I understand. but…really, ladies? As our submitter in Orlando put it: “I don’t know what scares me more: the fact that this was a problem, or the fact that my employers had professional signs made up to deter people from doing it.”

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Sarah in San Francisco convinced her friend Tim to take a photo of this note, the third in a series of progressively sterner notes that has appeared in his office restroom.

Writes Sarah: “I am a fan of, inter alia, the fact that the author ‘buries the lead’ in the p.s. in the middle; the phrase ‘do not leave with the toilet paper,’ as if it’s something you pick up at a bar and take home before the beer goggles wear off; the statement that toilet paper ‘belongs to the public,’ like the state’s natural resources; and of course, the threat to make the perpetrator pay…and more.”

Meanwhile, this note from Jen in Richmond, B.C. is both more specific and more puzzling.

I mean, subbing paper towels for TP, I understand…you gotta do what you gotta do when your rations run out. But drying your hands with toilet paper? Really, comrades?

related: five approaches to TP maintenance

You could start with a basic visual aid…

Or perhaps appeal to your readers’ sense of patriotism…

…or go with a not-so-veiled threat.

Of course, you could just let your ass do the talking.

But remember to cite your sources.

(Thanks to Ryan in West Palm Beach, Heather in Delaware, Julie in Marysville, Brian in British Columbia and bluepaintred in Canada for their advice on this matter.)

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Jenny says these notes have started showing up in several of the bathroom stalls in her freshman dorm at Oberlin College. As far she knows, none of her fellow frosh have taken the custodians up on their suggestion…but who knows what’ll happen once Parents’ Weekend rolls around?

So, President Krislov… care to comment?

related: You might want to take a hard look at your washcloth first