The Over/Under Debate

Chicago winter is here in full swing...however, it's deceptively beautiful outside today.  The sky is blue, the sun is shining...but the wind is whipping its icy fingers down the quaint street on which I work.  Until recently, my only job was to take care of Lil' Man for a few hours a day.  Now that Lil' Man's female parental unit works long days, I have a new task added to my list: take Rocko (aka: Stupidface, as his owners have so lovingly dubbed him) out for a midday walk.  The boxer and I walked out the front door this afternoon and were greeted by a chilly blast of air in our faces.  As we walked, my nose started running, my leg hairs began growing back (ladies, you understand!), and my fingers became red and stiff.  And of course, Rocko decided that today was the perfect day to take his sweet ol' time outside.  Stupidface, indeed.

By the time we made our rounds, stopped at his favorite spots, and disposed of his steamy baggie of excrement (TMI?) in the alley dumpster, I was chilled to the bone and more than ready to heat up my organic creamy low sodium tomato soup that awaited me in the fridge.  We finally made it back upstairs, and in no time my de-thawed fingers and I had whipped up a piping hot bowl of thick, delicious tomato soup with fresh cracked pepper and parmesan cheese. *cue choir of angels singing*  All was well...until the inevitable unthinkable happened:    

Noooo!

Some anti-happiness, invisible force swooped down, unannounced, and rattled the bowl right out of my hand!  Alright, fine, in my eagerness to partake of the hot, orange deliciousness, I clumsily tipped the bowl as I was pulling it off the counter.  But I still like the "invisible force" story... 

*Sigh* So not only is tomato soup dripping down the bowl, the counter, and pooling in inedible puddles on the floor, it's also menacingly sitting on the inside of my shirt cuff, threatening to pour down my sleeve, all the way up to my elbow, if I so much as made one wrong move.  Tend to the shirt sleeve, then take care of the rest of the mess.  But as frustrated as I was at the current happenings, I was pleasantly surprised when I turned around to see that Stupidface had redeemed himself for dilly dallying on our frigid walk...

  

Thanks, Rockstar!

He is good for something!  Well, needless to say, after clean-up was complete, I (and my sopping wet shirt sleeve) was only able to enjoy a few bites of barely warm tomato soup.  At least Rocko was able to get his hot. 

Thinking about my unfortunate mishap reminded me about another small household blunder that occurred at my apartment the other day.  Now, I know that for years, people have argued about the proper way to position a toilet paper roll on its holder.  The Over/Under Debate as I like to call it.  Should the toilet paper hang over the front of the roll or under (behind) the roll?  I realize this debate is probably a dying argument and most people don't really have a feeling one way or another about it.  Call me old school for even caring, but I have always been (and always will be) an "over" girl.  But, I like to be reasonable, especially about a pointless argument, so I have never brought this topic up with Hubs.  I figure there's a good chance he's never even heard of such a debate and would probably think I'm insane for insisting he put the toilet paper on in the "over" fashion.  If he puts a new roll on--and it's most always "under"--I simply switch it to the "over" position the next time I'm in the bathroom.  This has worked out just fine for the past 8 months, so no point in ruffling feathers.  But for those of you who no doubt think I'm ridiculous for caring about such a trivial matter, let me share with you a most excellent reason why the "over" position is truly the proper way to go.

The other day, I sauntered into the bathroom to grab a couple squares of TP to blow my nose.  I leaned over the top of the roll and gave it a little tap to start the unrolling process.  It spun around, but the available end wasn't dangling in the front.  So I just gave it another spin.  And another.  And another.  I spun to no avail!  The free end refused to make its presence known!  Finally using both hands, I slowly rolled it around and around, trying to spy the end like finding a stuck piece of packing tape on its roll.  Still nothing!  What was going on?!  What was this toilet paper trickery?  Maddeningly puzzled, I finally stepped back.  And this is what I saw:

   

Well, no wonder I couldn't find the end.  It was lying at the bottom of a messy toilet paper heap that I had unknowingly rolled out onto the tiled floor.  I had failed to spot one of Hubs' "under" placed rolls!  *Sigh*  Won't be making that oversight again.

So you see, faithful readers, there certainly is an advantage to an "over"-positioned roll.  Trust me, you will think about this the next time you are about to do your business.  But don't worry, if you fail to see the beauty of an "over" placed roll, you can rest assured that I will gladly fix it for you if I'm ever at your humble abode. ;)