I Don’t Know Who Started Counting Toilet Paper Sheets, but I’d Like a Word

 

I Don’t Know Who Started Counting Toilet Paper Sheets, but I’d Like a Word

I don’t know when we decided that the number of sheets on a roll of toilet paper was important, but I’m fairly certain no consumer ever asked for it.

Image by Alan Look Photograhpy

Nobody has ever walked into a store and said, “I’d like a roll that has exactly 410 sheets on it, and not a sheet more.” Yet there it is, printed on the package in bold type, as if it’s a meaningful statistic—like calories on food or miles per gallon on a car.

The problem with counting sheets is that a sheet isn’t anything. It’s not a measurement. It’s a suggestion. One company’s sheet is thick enough to qualify as light cardboard, while another company’s sheet is so thin you can read the warranty information through it. Calling them both “one sheet” is like saying a thimble and a coffee mug are both “one cup.”

Then there’s the ply. Nobody explains how ply factors into the sheet count, because if they did, the whole thing would fall apart. Five hundred sheets of one-ply toilet paper sounds impressive until you realize you’re expected to use it six at a time, which brings you right back to eighty-three practical events per roll—assuming you’re counting, which no sane person is.

Image by Alan Look Photograhpy

I’ve also noticed that rolls with the highest sheet counts are usually the size of a small tractor tire. They don’t fit on the holder. They don’t spin freely. You tug once and the roll stops like it hit a wall. Now you’re negotiating with bathroom hardware, and somehow the extra sheets feel less like a benefit and more like an inconvenience.

What the number also doesn’t tell you is how people actually use toilet paper. Nobody uses it one sheet at a time the way the package implies. People grab a length, fold it, add another, reconsider, add two more, and then hope for the best. Any number based on orderly, single-sheet usage is a work of fiction.

And finally, there’s the last few sheets. The package says there are several left. Experience says there aren’t. Toilet paper rolls lie at the end. They always have. That’s not a manufacturing flaw—it’s a character flaw.

If companies really wanted to be honest, they’d label rolls with something useful, like:

• “Comfortable enough”

• “You’ll use more than you think”

• “This roll will betray you sooner than expected”

But they don’t, because those aren’t numbers, and numbers look official.

So we keep standing in the aisle, comparing sheet counts like they mean something, even though they don’t describe comfort, strength, dignity, or success.

And that’s probably why they put them there.

Nobody has ever said,

“Thank goodness this roll had 425 sheets.”

They just say,
“Whew.”

Written by a guest columnist who clearly spent too much time in the paper goods aisle.

Images by Alan Look Photography