T.P.

I was going about my own business, loafing around the house on a well deserved day off. I had a book in my hand and found myself pacing as I read. The television was blaring some incoherant cartoon while my three year old son danced and jumped and climbed and spun like a washing machine filled with shoes. I let him go about it. He wasn’t bothering me, so I wasn’t going to bother him. We’ve been trying to do that lately - let the child entertain himself.

I made my rounds - kitchen, living room, laundry room, garage, and back through - reading all the while. It was a good book full of morally grey characters and simple, bloodcurdling descriptions of violence and I was lost in it. Somewhere along the way, I decided to change my trajectory. I went down the hallway instead of through the living room, and - out of the corner of my eye - I saw it.

An asinine amount of toilet paper was coiled on the lid of the john like some feathery serpent. I stared at it, aghast, confused, boiling with a ghastly, confusing rage that I’ve only been capable of reaching since becoming a father. Immediately, I knew what had happened. He’d snuck into the bathroom while I was pacing, snuck in here and undone the entire roll in a frenzy, with a wicked smile etched into his cherub's face.

“Son,” I called to him in my very best ‘dadvoice.’

“Whassisit, dad?”

He came around the corner, all big eyed and covered in his magnificent golden locks. I knew he would use his innocent features in an attempt to buy me off. He would play dumb, as if he were one of these drooling children that can’t tell the difference between green beans and french fries. But I was wise to his tricks.

“What’s this,” I asked him, indicating the catastrophe in my sacred lavatory.

He looked at me, blinked, then turned his attention to the pile he’d made on the comode. He turned his gaze back to meet mine and raised an eyebrow as if I’d suddenly lost my mind.

“That’s toilet paper, dad,” he said, scoffing at my ignorance as he walked away. "Geez."

And, of course, it was funny... so I laughed.