Get on the Bus

As you drive through the hills of rural East Tennessee, it is not uncommon to come upon houses that have some or all of the following items in the yard or on the porch: a refrigerator; an old, extremely worn out and dilapidated couch; a couple of old tractor tires; an ancient car or truck sitting on blocks; and perhaps an old school bus.

I was talking to some new friends from various places around the Northeastern U.S. today, and they were all quite astonished to hear about these yard decorations. They thought that we were kidding, but I can assure you that we were not. I have seen all of these things in the yards of rural homes (and some not-so-rural). The couch and refrigerator are usually out on the porch, protected somewhat from the wether. The couch is there for obvious reasons. It became too worn to continue to be furniture in the house, so it was relegated to the porch. Porch visitors, as opposed to house visitors, can set down and rest a spell on the old couch, which is fairly comfortable, for all its looks, as long as one knows where the sprung springs are and avoids them. Of course, there are more porch visitors than there are home visitors, as the porch is a brighter, cooler place to be during the dog days of an East Tennessee summer. So the old couch sees more service than the the couch that replaced it in the living room. Despite the protection of the porch roof, the fridge is rusted on the outisde. It may or may not be in working order. If it's working, it almost surely is stocked with beer and maybe a few half-empty cardboard cartons of earthworms to be used as bait. However , it's just as likely that it does not work and that the residents of the house meant to haul it off to the local dump (or illegally dump it in some nearby woods), but their truck wasn't running at the time. So there it sits.

But that brings us to the car up on blocks. This car was manufactured sometime between about 1950 and 1984. The tires are long gone, thus the cinder blocks that hold it up off the ground. It is sitting there, rusting, because someone is going to get it running some day. All it needs is a new transmission or a new motor or something like that (no one seems to remember now what was wrong with it when they put it up on blocks), and it'll be good as new. Junior Sparks, who lives down the road a ways, is keeping an eye out for the particular make and model of your car to come in that you might get some used parts of off. You've been waiting for a while, but you haven't heard from Junior yet.

Now, the tractor tires clearly serve the purpose of containing a small flower garden. The tires are almost always painted white, to improve their aesthetic appeal and perhaps make them look a little less obviously like, well, tires. The flower garden may or may not be in current existence. It may have been an idea that someone had but never got around to following through on. Or there may be a few bedraggled pansies struggling against the summer heat in the long-forgotten tire garden.

But the item of prime curiosity at this point, the “piece of resistance,” as my Aint Jo says, is the dilapidated school bus. It usually sits off in the side yard somewhere, some distance from the house itself. There are several reasons that a person might have an old school bus in one's yard. You might be—or at some point have been—a school bus driver. You parked it in the yard one day, and for whatever reason, your services were no longer required by the local school district, and you just left it there, in case you ever get a call that you need to go pick up some kids again. Or, you may have gotten a great deal on an old school bus, maybe someone was getting rid of it for around a hundred bucks, maybe less. And you thought how handy it might come in for storage or if you have guests who need a place to sleep or something like that. You plan to perk it up someday by maybe painting it, and you might strip out the seats to make room for beds or shelves or something like that, but you haven't quite gotten around to renovating it yet because you just can't decide which way to go: storage shed or guest house. So, there it has sat since about 1974, give or take a decade or so, until you decide what to do with it.

Now, you are probably most likely to find this yard décor if you get lost somewhere near the Smoky Mountains—the part of Appalachia that runs through East Tennessee and Western North Carolina. The farther you get from Gatlinburg or Pigeon Forge—we are talking about really lost now—the more likely you are to find a yard such as the one described here.

But if you haven't the time or patience to get lost in the Smoky Mountains (Warning: if you are not from around there, do not stop at some tiny gas station to ask for directions to civilization. They will recognize your accent as a foreign one and will probably be somber, silent, and utterly unhelpful until you leave. They don't mean to be unfriendly, it's just their way. Plus, they can't understand a damned word you're saying.) Anyway, if you don't happen to get lost in the mountains, you can still find the domestic scene that I've described here by just driving around in small communities anywhere in East Tennessee that do not have neighborhood associations and the regulations that go along with them, and enough yard space in which to compile the necessary elements.  

'68 Ford

 Last night I dreamt of my first car: a 1968 Ford Fairlane Torino. It was the ugliest color you ever saw; a friend of mine called it “ocher.” It was the color of dried-up mustard. Sort of . Maybe a littlel greener than that. It had a black vinyl top in the style that was popular in the 60s, to make it look like a convertible, I guess (though that ploy didn't work).

That car and I had a lot of fun in the years that I owned it, which was from 1982 to about 1987 or so. It had this massive V-8 engine which allowed me to overpower and pass just about anything else on the road at the time. The black top was beginning to crack and peel, so the car didn’t look like much. Frankely it was kind of a junker. But I kept it in great running order by taking it to my mechanic, Dave. Dave loved working on old Fords, and he kept that car running well beyond the normal mileage that a Ford of that age would normaly have gotten. I have so many stories and memories about that car and about Dave, who became kind of a father figure to me, and how he cared about me and the car and he kept us both on the road.

Anyway, In the dream last night, I was surprised to learn that I still had the car. I was keeping it in a barn or something, but I’d forgoteen that I had it. I was so thrilled to see it again. I think that it had actually become a convertible in the dream. I won’t go into the hazy details of the dream because it was, like most dreams, pretty ethereal. The thing is, that dream brought back lots of pleasant memories of that great old Ford.

Of course, I hadn’t appreciated it fully at the time I had it. To me, fresh out of college and setting out on my own, it was just a 14-year-old car that was kind of a clunker and a really ugly color. But over time, I came to really appreciate that car. The trunk was so big that you could just about step into it and walk around. I really did have to go into the trunk to get the spare tire out. 

I did a lot of work on the car myself because I didn’t have the money to take it to Dave every time the car had a problem. But also, it was so easy to work on that even an idiot coul do simple tasks. I changed the oil myself on a regular schedule. I replaced hoses and belts that had worn out and stuff like that. One time, I had diagnosed a problem (with my brother M’s help) as a bad fuel filter. I decided to take the fuel filter off the carburetor myself and replace it. (The car was made before the days of fuel injection, or at least before fuel injection became common in passenger cars.) The thing is, I have always been confused about which way to turn things to loosen them. I have trouble telling right from left and so forth, so I get confused about a lot of directional things. So I often end up tightening tthings that I had set out to loosen.

I was trying to take this fuel filter out of the carburetor, and it had to be screwed out. I had a pair of pliers, and I kept turning and turning that fuel filter. By the way, the fuel filter was inside this gold- colored metal cylinder, which is what I was actully trying to unscrew. Finally, I decided that maybe I was turning it the wrong way, so I began turning it the opposite way. After about 30 minutes of trying turning it this way and that, and almost surely making more preogress at tightening the darned thing reather than loosening it, I lost my temper, as I am wont to do when I become frustrated with mechanical things. I had already had a few choice words for the filter casing. I had questioned its heritage and had possibly insulted its mother. But it had gotten to where mere curse words, no matter how creatively used, did not quite express my true level of frustration. At that point, I wanted to pound on something. I had pliers in my hand, so I already had the tool I needed, and the fule filter was the most immediate thing in front of me, plus it had the benefit of being the actual object of my wrath. So, I began whanging away at it with the pliers. This felt really good for a few momnets, until the @##$&$% filter suddenly broke off from the side of the carburetor. It had sheered off right at the place where it was attached to the carburetor, leaving not even a small fragment of itself sticking out.

Now I was really in a bind. The part of the fuel filter casing that screwed into the carburetor was still there, but there was now no fuel filter attached. I did as I always do in such situations: call one of my brothers. In this case, the most useful of whom was M. Also known for his volatile temper, in addition to his excellent mechanical skills, I knew that he would not only know how to solve this new dilemma but he would also be understanding of theh temper tantrum that had caused it.

The end of the story was that, when he had time, M came over with the correct tools and drilled out the part of the fuel filter that was stuck in the carburetor. We then went and got the replacement part, installed it in the carburetor, and the car was good to go.

That car got me wherever I needed to go during the early days of my independent adulthood, and I remember it very fondly now. At the time, I worked nights, alone, at a small neighborhood liquor store so that I could spend my days flying as I was working toward getting my pilot's license. Many of the men who came into the store asked about my car. They would then stand around and reminisce about similar cars that they had owned in high school or college. “Those were the days,” they'd sigh wistfully. Often, they'd ask me if it was for sale. At the time, I'd have loved to sell it to get something smaller, newer, and more economical, but I knew that I couldn't find as good a deal on another car as the 800 bucks that my dad had sold it to me for, so I always told them no. They would then tell me that that was a good decision, as I should really enjoy that car while I had it. I would scoff at the very idea. The thing seemed as big as a houseboat, it was ugly, and it got about 16 miles to the gallon.

But last night's dream reminded me of that great old Ford Torino and how much fun I had in it. My liquor store customers were right, I should've enjoyed the car more when I had it, and now I'm as nostalgic about my '68 Ford as those guys were about their first cars.

What Do You Value?

I've been thinking lately about my core values. You know, those things that make you get up in the morning, shower, dress, and walk out the front door with a bounce in your step. The things that make life worth living for you. Each person's core values are different. I'm trying to be conscious about my values right now: what are they, am I doing the things that will fulfill them, and do I need to re-evaluate any f them? Our actions are typicaly motivated by our core values. Our goals, long term and short term, are shaped by ur values. But the value itself is the underlying thing that motivates us in al that we do throughout the day.

I think that I lost sight of my values at some point, thus the examination and reassessment. Lately, I've had trouble even getting up in the morning, much less pursuing my values with purpose and enthusiasm.

One thing I realized is that I've been pursuing editing (my vocation and, apparently, avocation) as if it is my core value. I've become so wrapped up in writing and editing for so long that it seems that “spelling the words right” has become my main value. “Speling the words right” is my dode for editing in general. But I've gone fom wanting to produce good, solid editorial work to obsessing on making NO mistakes at all. Given my poor typicng skills this is a real challenge, as careful proofreading is required to find and fix all of the errors.

Let me go back a bit. Okay, let me go back to a long, long time ago. When I was about 4 or 5 I started learning to read (like most people of that age). However, I was apparently born with a built-in spell checker, because enven in the early days of learning to read, I coul spot when words were spelled wrong. Tat that time, I could not even proceed with read ing the book. I would stp , look at the word sharply, read it about 28 times, confim that it really was spelled wrong, and then I would take the book and go find my mom. I would point the error out to her. She—being a mbusy mom of five children—would say something thoughtful, like “Umhm. That happns sometiems. “ But I would perseverate on the problem until I got her to actually look at the book. She would then gently explain to me that , yes, the word was misspelled and I could go on reading. I found this very hard to accept. If the peope who make the mbooks don't even know how to spell the words, then how can you believe anything they say? If they are so irresponsible as to spell words wrong IN A BOOIK, then they are completely unreliable regarding any information that might be I n the book.

Now flas forward a few decades. I'm still that little kid sho is finding the mistakes in the books. But I'm aso the person writing the “books” (or whatever). Did I mention that my typing skils are terrbile.? And now I'm trying to be more relaxed about mistkes in general.

The reason for this is that when I examine my core values, I find things like “Family and friends are improtant to me.” and “Seeking God and following his precepts is important to me.” I do not find “Speling all the word right” in my cor values, but it is clearly there, as I spend untold hours every day making sure that the words are all spelled right. I emean, really, a LOT of hurs. I have reached an age where I am thinking about what my legacy will be . What mark , if any, will I have left on the world? My name will not be well known out in the world, but I would like for thos who knew me to think of me as a loving person who spent time with them, cared about them, listene to them, and valued them.

I picture my tombstone, which will say, “Here lies Kathy. She spelled all the words right.” (Actually, knowing my luck, and the cheapness of my family, they will hire a cut-rate engraver who will carve, “She spelled allthe words rite.” or “write” or “rigth.” ) And that's it. That's my legacy. “She spelled all the words rigth.” Ha ha.

So I'm really questionging now WHY the words and spelling them right is so important to me. And can I let it go? I mean, why does it matter? You an make mistakes and people can still figure out what you meant. Thre are plenty of poorly written, poorly spelled blog posts out there, and they still seem to have fans. So why am I spending so much time spelling all the words right?

What is the point? Aren't people more important than words? Isn't having a meaninful and rich life more important tha spelling the words right?

I don't know. I'm still wrestling with athat.  

You are here: a speck of dust

 So I was already feeling pretty small and insignificant when I went to the Museum of Science in Boston the other day. You know, not completely depressed, just kind of...well, the words that kept coming to mind where “a waste of space.” So maybe I was a litte depressed. But I fuigured that a trip to the museum with friends might brighten my mood.

We checked out a number of the exihbits , which were great, and then we headed to the planetarium for “undiscovered worlds,”. It was a great show, with lots of spinning planets and traveling speedily through space, racing past the stars, and exploring recently discovered “exoplanets”: planets outsid our solar system. It really was fasncinating and informative. Mch has been dicsovered in the filed of astronomy since the two classes I took in college back in the... well, never you mind when.

Then at the very end of the sho, they returned to our own homey little solar system, and came close in to our nice, yellow dwarf sun. Ahhh...home! Then, as they talked about the billions of other stars in the galazy, and the biliions of other galaxies out there, they did a suden zoom-out from our sun, saying, “Our sun is just a speck in the glaaxy, and our planet is just a grain of sand circling that speck”

Well, that scertainly puts one in one's place, doesn't it.? I left the planeterium wondering exactly what I am in the cosmic sense. I am one of six bilion microorganisms on a grain of sand circling a tiny speck of light in an infinite universe. Yep. That helped my mood a lot.  

Resistance Is Futile

Following is an e-mail to my oldest brother, who, like me, is a logophile. We often e-mail each other about interesting words we’ve discovered, or–just as often, now that we’re both middle-aged–asking the other to remind us of the word for.... He called me last night on that sort of quest.

"This morning, I got the message you left last night, trying to find out what the word is for when things are out to get us. Speaking of things being out to get me, my new droid phone doesn't beep every minute, like my last one did, to let me know I have a message. In fact, it does nothing to let me know I have a message, unless I happen to be looking right at it. I'm sure there's a setting somewhere where I could change this, if only I could figure it out. But for now, I figure I'm doing well just to be able to answer the *^%$& thing.

"Nope. I can't think of the word, either. I spent altogether too much time searching our old e-mails for it, but couldn't' find it there. I keep my own personal dictionary of fun and unusual words, but I took it off my work computer and put it on a jump drive. I wonder which jump drive? And I wonder where it is? No doubt, it's hiding from me. They do that, you know."

Later, his wife thought of the word: "resistentialism." This particular brother of mine does not understand resistentialism himself. My family is firmly split on this philosophy, with some of us knowing that chairs do, in fact, jump out and stub our toes, while the others are completely unaware of this quite obvious behavior on the part of things. Please note that the "resistance" in "resistentialism" is not on the part of the humans involved. It is not that we are resistant to things. The resistance is on the part of the things, which are locked in constant (and apparently mortal) combat with us–probably for domination of the planet.

Right now, it’s hard for me to say who is winning.

Boxing Day

[This story was originally written as an e-mail to my friend M, so I've left it in that form. M and I had talked by phone for several hours the morning that I wrote this story. This story did not actually happen on the day after Christmas—Boxing Day in the British world—but you'll see why it's called Boxing Day. This story took place in January 2005.]

Dear M,

It was good to hear from you this morning. I just had to write to you about the experience I had immediately after our conversation.

I am here alone this weekend.  Or, rather, the C family are on their way back from a gymnastics meet today.  So, I'm taking care of the dogs. I could hear them barking and carrying on upstairs as we talked, and I realized that I needed to let them out.  So, after we got off the phone, I started into the bedroom to put on shoes and go upstairs. My cat, Fenian, was stretched across the floor, just inside the bedroom door, asleep, with his paws wrapped around one of my shoes, which he often does.  I thought it was rather cute, so I quietly backed out of the room and went to get my camera and take a picture.  He usually sleeps so lightly that he wakes up before I can take a picture of him being cute, but I got the picture.  Then I thought, "wouldn't it be awful if he was dead?"  I looked closely to see if he was breathing.  You have to understand that this happens all the time--at least a couple of times a week--because Fenian, like all cats, sleeps a lot, and then I become convinced he's dead.  So, I looked closely and didn't see him breathing.  Well, they breathe very shallowly, so I finally called his name. No response. So I nudged him, and still no response.

Well, the upshot is, my cat really did die. It is so bizarre. I felt like I was really in that Monty Python sketch we were quoting this morning. " 'E's not dead, 'E's just resting."  He was still warm, but he wasn't breathing.  Then I wondered, "How can I know he's really dead?  I'd hate to bury him alive.  What if he's in a coma?  But then again, what am I going to do for a cat in a coma?  I'm not exactly going to pay to keep him on life support and wait for that day 10 years from now when he will suddenly wake up and ask for a beer and a hotdog (or catnip) and act as if nothing has happened."  The C family have more experience with dead or dying animals than anyone I know, so I tried to call them, but couldn't reach them. Then I called the vet. I felt ridiculous. What am I going to do, hold the phone out toward the cat and say, "Do you think he's dead?" The whole thing was so bizarre.

You have to understand that the thing is, this was so sudden, so out of the blue, I had no reason to expect it. He was middle-aged for a cat, and had not been sick. Just this morning, he'd done all of his usual things, woke me up to be fed (as I mentioned when I talked to you), etc. He had even come up to me when I was talking to you, looked like he might like to jump up into my lap, changed his mind, and wandered away. Evidently it was right after that that he went into the bedroom and dropped dead. I've just never had an animal die suddenly without being sick beforehand. And he never even made a sound.

The woman I talked to at the vet's office almost couldn't believe it either. After we talked about it for a while, she said she thought he really was dead. She got his chart out and looked over it. He'd just been in for his annual exam in October, and she just couldn't see any sign of anything. She said cats don't have heart attacks very often. She said I was welcome to bring him in if I felt like I needed someone to look at him and pronounce him officially dead.

I resisted taking him to the vet.  I was going through all that in my head, too.  This is the problem with being someone who lives everything out in her head first.

Scene: vet's office
Enter KB with cat-carrier box with holes in the top.

KB: I need to see the vet.

VR (vet receptionist): (perkily) And what are we here for today?

KB: (whispering so as not to upset other clients) Well, actually, I think my cat is dead.  I just want someone to confirm it.

Later, in examining room at vet's.

KB: So, what do you think? Is he dead or just resting?

Vet: Yep, that's one dead cat. My official diagnosis is This Is a Dead Cat. I'm very sorry Miss B, for the loss of your beloved companion. That'll be $35, please.

Too weird. But his body was so warm. What if he wasn't really dead? I went and got the carrier and put him in it. He was still quite pliable. I stuffed him into the box. He looked pretty dead. Should I or shouldn't I? Do other people have such a hard time telling a dead cat from a live one?

After I had him in the box, I tried the C family again and got them. AC was very sympathetic; in shock, really, when she heard how active he'd been just this morning, and now dead. But he sounded dead to her. Still, being sympathetic, she said I should take him to the vet if I really felt like I needed that. I went through the above scenario in my mind again. I looked at Fenian's body and thought, "I love you, buddy, but I'm not sure I'm willing to go through that for you."

So I left him in the carrier and brought him into the living room.  I let the dogs out and did some things around the house.  Every so often, I would go and peek into Finn's box and check. Still dead?  Yep, still dead. Finally, after a couple of hours, he was cold and the diagnosis was certain. This is one dead cat. I could nail him to his perch, but he'd still be dead. In fact, rigor was setting in, and I thought, "I don't want to bury him in the carrier, so I'd better put him in his final resting box before he gets too stiff." So I went on a search for a box. Finn is a really big cat, about 17-18 pounds. When he stretched out to sleep on my legs when I was in bed, he could reach from the top of my legs to my ankles: about 32 inches. This is no shoebox cat. I even had some large shoeboxes, but they wouldn't work. I found a box I'd gotten some stuff in in the mail during Christmas and tried that. So then I pulled him out of the carrier and put him in this box. It is hard to believe how hard it is to pull a large cat out of a box when he is, excuse the term, dead weight. He was incredibly heavy and hard to get out of the carrier. The box was smallish (but bigger than a shoebox) and square. I figured I would kind of curl him up, like how he sleeps, but he was a little too stiff to make him look completely natural. (Like looking natural was important at this point!) Still, I got him to fit in the box. What could I put in the box with him to send him happily off to Valhalla? Unfortunately, I had just thrown away one of his favorite toys--one I've had as long as I've had him--during Christmas. I couldn't really think of anything. Looking at the box, I thought, “It's still kind of a tall box. He could probably fit into something smaller.”  So I got a box that was about the same dimensions but not quite as tall.  Then I had again to wrestle his dead-weight out of one box and smoosh him into another. Well, he fit into that box but he was just a bit too big for the height of the box, which meant it didn’t close flat. Finally, I thought, “KB, it’s not like you’re going to mail him and you have to find the box that’s just the right fit.”  So I transferred him back into the first box and was done with it. He is one of the most manhandled cat carcasses around.

After I had him boxed up, I returned to the question of some appropriate emblem to bury him with. He wasn’t much of one for playing, but his favorite toys (not counting the one I threw away) were the little plastic strips you pull off the caps on milk jugs and a little foam ball that was supposed to have gone on my car antenna but it didn’t fit. He could dance around the house with those milk jug things in a way that made you think he had live prey. They are all over the place, so I found one and put it in the box with him. I knew that foam ball had to be somewhere, and I set out in search of it. I knew he must have gotten it into some little inaccessible place that he couldn’t extract it from because it’s the only thing that ever made him give up the game until I found it and tossed it back onto the playing field. After a long search, I found it and added it to his box.

By now I was on a roll. I felt like if I was going to give him a pagan burial, I might as well go ahead and send everything he’d need for a happy afterlife. I wasn’t willing to eviscerate him and put his organs into canopic jars, but I figured I could at least provide for his little afterlife needs.  I put some of his food and treats and catnip into little plastic bags and tucked those in with him too. Now he was ready to sail into the West.

In the meantime, the C family had returned home, and AC had come down and commiserated with me. Even she—who had no use for my ornery cat in life—was moved to tears on seeing his cold, stiff carcass crammed into a box. So, we cried over him and then went outside to survey the area for a proper burial spot. The Cs have buried their animals in the animals’ favorite spots all around the property.  Since Finn was an indoor cat, he didn’t really have any spots that belonged to him.  But he did spend hours every day peering out the “front” door, which overlooks the back yard and horse pasture.  He could watch all the other critters go by: birds and the barn cats and all the dogs and the horses, and chatter at them, and dream about being outside. So I thought it would be appropriate to bury him anywhere in the area that had been his daily view. AC said that I could put a little cross on his grave to remember where he is, but I told her that I didn’t think he was a Christian.

HC is out there now, digging the hole, and we will bury him here directly. The one thing I told the Cs is that, though I loved my cat, I don’t want to see him again. Meaning, I don’t want one of those damn dogs digging him up and dragging him all over the neighborhood. This is a problem with dogs, so HC always makes sure to bury pets really deep. Fortunately, he has an attachment for the tractor that makes it possible to dig holes deeper than even our dogs are inclined to go.

So, here in a little bit, we’ll have a burial, and I will cry a little more, I’m sure, and then we will all move along. It takes me back to the conversation we had recently about the advantages of dropping dead unexpectedly versus having a long, drawn-out illness in which you suffer. Though it is a shock to me that Finn is dead, I am glad that I didn’t go through anything long and drawn out with him. As I’ve watched others struggle with a sick pet for a long time, I’ve always been bothered about it. On the one hand, because I am sentimental about animals, I would be willing to pay for some medical treatment for my cat, but on the other hand, I couldn’t afford to pay much, and at what point do you stop? And if you have to stop at some point, you might as well not have started in the first place. I would hate to spend hundreds of dollars trying to keep an animal alive, only to have it die anyway. And some people spend thousands. Well, I’m getting away from the sad loss of my cat, so I don’t want to go too far down that path right now. At any rate, I’m glad he went the way he did, without being in pain for a long time, and didn’t put me through all that agonizing. He was here and seemingly fine one minute and gone the next. That’s for the best, as far as I’m concerned, though I’m very sad and will miss him.

Love,
KB

Potty Peeves

Pet peeves, revisited. Okay, I already wrote a post on pet peeves a while back. But they were biggish ones. However, we all have these teeny, weeny little pet peeves—things that annoy us every time we encounter them—but they are so picayune that we never think to discuss them amongst our friends. Here are a few of mine, all relating to toilet paper, which, now that I think of it, seems to be something of a theme of mine. This list, though, is mercifully shorter than my first pet peeve post.

1. Those toilet paper rollers in public restrooms that are meant to limit your TP usage. I understand that their desire is to keep nimwads from taking a huge wad and then causing the toilet to back up (and then flooding the bathroom with raw sewage and going off and leaving the mess behind and not even bothering to report it to the business's staff). But really, do they have to make it so that they feed out one sheet of TP at a time? I mean, you keep rolling the thing, it dispenses one sheet and then stops rolling. You tear off that sheet, roll it again, and get one more sheet. It takes a LONG time to accumulate enough TP at that rate. And if it's one-ply, you might be there all day.

2. And as long as I'm on potty matters: Perhaps the one-sheet-at-a-time dispensers are better than those other dispensers. The ones that are like a big drum with a humongous roll of Eastern-bloc-grade toilet paper in it. The TP dispenses at the bottom. You roll out a generous (but not toilet-clogging) supply, yank on it, and find that it is impervious to tearing, even on the serrated edge of the dispenser. You yank again. Rather than it tearing, it just dispenses more paper. Oh, my. Don't these public-bathroom dispensers just go from the sublime to the ridiculous? You keep trying to get it to stop, and you finally have to reach down, hold the paper against the cutting edge and really yank hard. In so doing, the paper gets pulled so hard that it gets yanked into a tight tube of paper rather than a fluffy pile. You now have something more akin to butt floss than to toilet paper. You are on your own to figure out how to use butt floss, as I'm not going there.

3. And, the final toilet paper complaint of the day: when the two-ply TP roll gets off sync at the manufacturing plant, and the perforated lines on the roll you get are not aligned properly. It's hard to figure out where to stop it. Very small peeve, but an annoyance when it happens to you.