Tuesday, 24 May 2011
Local Library Facilities
Having been so very unfair to my local library in Canberra yesterday - as some of the commenters quite rightly pointed out to me I was - I should redress the balance. After all, very admirably and despite severe cuts to the budget for the purchase of actual books, the staff at Dickson have somehow managed to find the money somewhere - presumably out of the save-the-planet-enviromental-measures-initiative kitty (and, let's face it, we are entering the 'critical decade' [the great Panjandrum - I mean 'Climate Commissioner' told us that], so how better to spend the money?) - to pay someone to go through what is thrown into the lavatory and check that each piece has been used in the 'appropriate' manner before being tossed wantonly down the drain:
How did they first discover that unused toilet paper was being hurled about so tragically, I wonder? Perhaps some noble vigilante took matters into their own hands one day. Very admirable behaviour, of course, but the worry lingers - did they wash thoroughly before returning to their more routine library tasks?
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Well, it can lead to problems.
ReplyDeleteA fellow I once worked with told the following story: aged about four, he wished to experiment with matches, but feared getting caught or setting more fire than he could control. It occurred to him that he could light off some toilet paper and flush the evidence. He got a suitable length free to light, dropped the roll in to float, and found that he needed both hands to get the match lit. He held the free end of the paper in his lips as he lit the match, then discovered how very slowly toilet paper detaches from a moist surface. He took his nourishment through a straw for about a week.
In reading the notice, I suppose that the authority has paid plumbers to remove objects, some of which have fallen in accidentally (rollers), some not. The phrase "only used" probably crept in out of caution, for fear that the literal-minded would take this as a command to drop new rolls in.
A strange mixture of normal four-year-old idiocy and a mature understanding of consequences exhibited by your friend - sort of impulsive but not. My husband tells me he set his bedspread alight at about that age. His mother didn't speak to him for two weeks.
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