feels like home

I saw something in the first-floor restroom of our office building the other day, and the sight of it transported me back to America, where such things are common. I don't recall ever seeing anything like this in a Korean restroom before:


Yes, boys and girls: it's the Toilet Paper Wad. Were it smaller, I'd call it a "spitwad," but as you see, this thing is huge, and obviously not the result of a kid's chewing. The sheer size of the wad was mesmerizing; it hinted at a heart filled with extravagance and chutzpah.

American students, when bored, are prone to bouts of aesthetic mischief. If they're not flinging sharpened pencils into the soft material of a restroom's drop ceiling, they're soaking wads of toilet paper and throwing them upward to see whether they'll stick. The above clump looks, to my professional eye, like a major success. And as I said, it made me feel right at home.


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