Breaking the Paper Trail

The past few days I have been staying home or 'sheltering in place' like most. I can continue to work from home and I do. It is certainly convenient not to have to dress up or even shave for work. Meetings are done online but without video. But I have found that I don't move around as much when I am sitting at my home computer. In the office, I practice 'Management by Wandering Around'. I conduct most of my work by going around to my team. I also need to walk a couple of hundred steps every time I use the restroom. At home, I am chained to the PC and the bathroom is pretty much adjacent to my home office which is nothing fancy, essentially the landing at the top of the stairs - the office I mean, not the bathroom.

In the midst of this, I have been asked to reduce my vacation balance or lose any excess. So I have had to take time off now but that has been frustrating in the current situation where I really cannot go anywhere. I do manage to go walking and that's a blessing for sure. Still the last few days have been creating a feeling of being under house arrest. The news is a constant source of anxiety and social media keeps bringing posts from people who seem to be petrified. I have been reducing my consumption of both to retain some sanity. Writing a blog about the whole thing seemed a good way to take a somewhat distanced look at the whole thing. What I am trying to say is whether you find this distracting or not, I do. And if it provides you with a break too, all the better.

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'Paper or plastic?' - this was a common question we faced at the supermarket what seems a long time ago. Paper bags were more expensive and grocery stores were switching to plastic then. Now we have moved on to reusable bags. 'Bring your own bags' is the mantra. But another concern has been injected into this whole question with the threat of Corona virus. In fact, there are YouTube videos  on how to do grocery shopping and handle the bags amidst the threat of infection. While not exactly advocating for hazmat suits, these are enough to cause a nervous breakdown or make you a candidate for OCD. Obviously that's not what I want to dwell upon but something more fundamental and serious.

When the public sensed that there was going to be some kind of a 'lock down', panicky consumers rushed to the stores to stock up on necessities. Surprisingly toilet paper was the first item to run out leaving gaping empty shelves. Some experts (!) have said that the rush to grab toilet paper is due to irrationality and fear. Seriously, I am not sure if this is an explanation or mere restating of the event.

Anyway, many were caught by surprise and now may be facing a real shortage of the essential item in their homes. To them I say, 'How about water?'. After all, a large part of the world uses water for the purpose of cleaning rather than paper. In the US, there is only a tiny section that has embraced the liquid solution. I understand there is an increased demand for bidets of all kinds now. I have seen articles even promoting the superiority of these pop up online.

Growing up in India where we use water instead of paper, I remember the older generation mention with not a little disgust how strange it was that the British ('white people' was the term then) used paper for cleaning. Our household had all kinds of rules about personal hygiene and cleanliness in general. Every time you went out and came back, you were expected to wash your hands and feet. The same rule applied after every time one used the bathroom.

We ate with our hands and obviously it was important to keep them clean. Serving oneself while eating was strictly prohibited to avoid any contamination. The plates used for eating from were never to be mixed up with cooking utensils when washing. They were stored separately too. Or better still plantain leaves were used instead of plates. I could go on but you get the idea.

It was an adjustment getting used to toilet paper when I moved to the US. Paper has many disadvantages and I can't go into all of them here. I will just mention one - even the best brand of paper is abrasive to the skin. Enough said. But an alternative was not easily available until recently. I have finally been able to retrofit the toilet with what goes by the fancy name of 'bidet sprayer' but basically just a flexible hose with a nozzle, the kind that is now pretty common in India and elsewhere.

I think COVID-19 is going to permanently redefine how we function in many ways. For instance, if it promotes more Work from Home or WFH to use the new buzzword, we can expect air quality to improve and roads to be less congested. If more people switch to using water in the toilet and less paper, that is a good thing too. So if you ask me 'Paper or Water?', my answer is 'Water most certainly'. At the least, I have reduced my dependence on the now elusive paper. I also have the satisfaction that I have done a little bit for the planet as well. But the bottom line (yes, pun intended) is I just find it more comfortable to use water. I think we can leave it there.